Om Nom Nom, Hamsterchan!
by EvilFuzzy9
Summary: Ayumu Nishizawa has only one dream: to create a harem for her beloved Hayate-kun! Even if she must lie, cheat, and steal, she will do everything in her power to see it realized. ... If only it were that simple. Now rated 'M'.
1. The Final Solution

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: Well, I've recently gotten somewhat addicted to the _Hayate the Combat Butler_ manga, but when I looked for fanfics... Imagine my surprise to discover a measly three pages! And I decided that this must be remedied! … And I like Nishizawa. She's so cute! X3 **

**Also, this fic will be sort of like _An Immodest Puppet's Proposal_ (which I promise, I'm working on updating) in that it will be a harem fic. However, I intend to play the harem tropes straighter in this fic. … As for whether or not this fic will become as immensely perverted as its spiritual predecessor, I'm not sure. (Though I have a feeling that a few readers may hope so...)**

**P.S. At one point, my spell-check suggested '_Nazi Sanhedrin_' as the correct spelling for '_Nagi Sanzen'in_'. You just can't make up that kind of hilarious oxymoron. **

* * *

**Disclaimer: I do not own Hayate the Combat Butler, or anything else. If I did, Hinagiku, Maria, and Ayumu would make out. **

* * *

**Chapter One:**

**The Final Solution**

Nagi Sanzen'in. That name sent chills down her spine. The very thought of that blonde, pigtailed she-devil was enough to induce rage-vomiting. In the honest opinion of Ayumu Nishizawa, that flat-chested aristocrat was nothing more than a spoiled brat, and Nagi herself felt similarly about Ayumu, so there was no love lost between them.

… So why were the two of them meeting in such a conspiratorial manner?

Nagi and Ayumu were in one of the many side-buildings on the Sanzen'in estate. The former was dressed in a clearly copyrighted orange and blue jumpsuit, while the latter was dressed in all black like a traditional kabuki stagehand. And both of them stood out like sore thumbs.

"Now," Nagi began, looking at Ayumu with lazy contempt, "what did you want to say to me?"

"I know you like Hayate," Nishizawa stated bluntly.

"So?" It wasn't like it was exactly secret. Everyone and their dog knew about the heiress's borderline unhealthy crush on her indebted butler, with the exception of the butler himself (a fact that continually escaped Nagi).

The sixteen year-old girl smirked. "Well, I'm just wondering what you know about _s-e-x_," she said in a cheerfully sing-song voice.

Nagi blushed. "Wh-what does that have to do with anything?-!"

Ayumu chuckled evilly. "Hayate-kun is a growing boy. He has needs that he needs satisfied," she said as she not-so-subtly adjusted her modest-sized breasts,.

Nagi scowled. That stupid hamster was not-so-inexplicably pissing her off. "So? He's my butler," she replied, "... And he gets plenty of food and water," she added as an afterthought.

Nishizawa's playful smirk grew into a full-blown Cheshire-grin. "Those aren't the needs I'm talking about. …_Could it be that you don't know about the birds and the bees?_" she wondered in a mischievous tone.

Nagi's temples throbbed furiously. "Of course I know about that! How could I possibly have as high a level of INT as I do, without knowing about something as fundamental as sexual reproduction?-!"

Ayumu ignored the wealthy young blond in favor of thinking aloud to herself. "Hmm, I wonder about that..." She once again turned her attention to the young Miss Sanzen'in. "You say that, but what would you do if you walked into his room while he was masturbating?"

Nagi snarled even as her face was flushed a deep red. "Slander! Slander!" she shouted in outrage, pointing accusingly at Nishizawa. "How dare you say such a thing! Hayate doesn't masturbate!" she declared with absolute certainty, repeating "Slander!" once more for good measure. The girl likely would have continued her rant, but she was stopped short by the sensation of a level of fear akin to what one would feel if somebody was holding a 'plus five dagger of murderous exsanguination'to one's throat.

"Who's slandering whom, I wonder?" came the deceptively serene voice of Maria, who was standing at the door to the room, her shadow like the presence of a cold-blooded killer, "And how would you even know whether or not Hayate masturbates, milady?" she calmly asked as killing intent filled the room.

"Eep!" Nagi squeaked as she hid behind a temporarily catatonic Nishizawa. "I don't!" she cried out hastily, "It's not as if I watch him on CCTV, or anything!"

Maria's eyebrow twitched. _'Such specific denial...'_ The maid shook her head. "But still, can you really say for certain that Hayate doesn't masturbate...?" The _"After all, he is a guy,"_ went unsaid, mainly because Hayate often acted more girly than actual girls, but also because saying such a thing would be perpetuating a downright barbaric double-standard, and Maria did not believe in doing such things. Nope, she certainly did not (though to be fair, as far _tsunderes _went, Maria was actually quite understanding).

Nagi stomped her foot on the floor in childish obstinance. "He's my butler!" she exclaimed, "So if I say Hayate doesn't masturbate, then he doesn't masturbate!"

Nishizawa frowned. "Hmph, as to be expected from a Sanzen'in... You don't care about the needs of others," she muttered, as if she had been expecting Nagi's response.

"What?-!" Nagi roared, "How dare you say such a thing! How dare you!" She turned to Maria. "Maria, I care about other people, right? Tell that hamster how selfless I am!" she ordered.

"…" Maria looked at Nagi expressionlessly, then she turned to look at Ayumu. She looked back to Nagi, not saying a word.

"Hey!" Nagi exclaimed indignantly, "You were thinking _'Should I lie?'_ just now, weren't you! Traitor! Benedict Arnold!"

"... I was thinking nothing of the sort..." Maria lied blatantly, looking out a conveniently positioned window as she did so.

"Liar!" Nagi exclaimed accusingly. "Liar, liar, pants on fire, nose as long as a telephone wire!" she chanted as she poked the maid with an accusing finger.

"Ahem," interrupted Nishizawa as she cleared her throat, trying to get the conversation back on track. "We were talking about how Nagi is cruelly preventing Hayate-kun from developing a healthy sexuality, remember?" she reminded the maid and her mistress.

"I am not!" Nagi denied irefully.

"... Actually, you kind of are," Maria reluctantly informed her mistress. Nagi didn't make it any easier, either, the way her eyes watered up.

"See?" Ayumu smirked sweetly at the younger girl, "Even your maid agrees with me: you're repressing Hayate-kun's sexuality, preventing him from growing up into a well-adjusted adult. As if he needs any _more _issues!" she added the last part under her breath, directing a disapproving glare at the offending heiress.

Nagi sniffled. "But... I'm not emotionally ready to make love to him..." the thirteen year-old whimpered, looking uncharacteristically shy as a Single Glistening Teardrop™ fell from her eyes to the ground.

Nishizawa smiled kindly on the outside, while on the inside she was going _'Squee!'_ at how adorably vulnerable Nagi looked. "Don't worry," she whispered, tenderly putting a finger to Nagi's lips, "I'll break Hayate in for you, and when your old enough I'll even give advice on how to please him."

Nagi stared up at Ayumu with big, watery eyes. Sniffling cutely, the petite blonde nodded her head. "... th-thank you..." she whispered gratefully. For some reason, Hamster-chan looked much more mature and beautiful, and she seemed to be sparkling while cherry blossoms fell through the air around her. However, Nagi could not care less as she nuzzled the older girl's bosom.

"I know," Ayumu said soothingly, stroking the younger girl's hair even as her face broke out into a victorious grin.

* * *

Later in the evening, the sky above shining in the vibrant hues of the sunset, Nishizawa had just exited the gate outside the Sanzen'in estate when she was approached by an elderly, gray-haired gentleman with glasses and a trim mustache. "Excuse me, miss, but would you by any chance happen to know the whereabouts of a certain device that's about the size and shape of a remote, with the word '_bish__ō__j__ō__-inator_' written on it?"

Ayumu stared at the man. "... No," she lied, looking to the side as she did so.

Klaus nodded. "Very well, then. Good evening, miss."

"Yes," Nishizawa replied, "Good evening," she chirped over her shoulder as she walked off. Turning her head to face forward, she smirked victoriously. _'Good, he doesn't suspect me. Now, for phase two of my master plan!' _Evil laughter escaped her lips as she walked off into the sunset. _'Yes, very soon, Hayate-kun will be mine!' _

Tama watched the girl as she retreated. _'That evil laughter... could it be...? She is after Sanzen'in fortune! I must thwart her evil plot!'_ he thought with a Cliché Heroic Pose ™. "Now! I am off!" he declared, preparing to chase after the girl....

… Only to be stopped by the sound of his dinner bell. _'Dinner!'_ he cheered instinctively.

_ 'No!' _exclaimed a voice in Tama's head, _'You must stop that girl!'_

_'Who's there?-!'_ thought Tama, _'Is that you, Norio-sama?'_

_'No, you idiot!'_ came the voice's rebuttal, _'I'm your conscience!'_

_ '… So, you're not Norio-sama?'_

The voice sighed. _'No, I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be Norio Wakamoto, or anyone else other than your conscience, you stupid feline!'_

Tama thought about this for a moment. _'Oh, okay, then. Let me know when the Narrator shows up,' _he told the voice in his head while heading towards the mansion, where Maria would be waiting with his dinner. His stomach grumbled. _'I hope we have veal, tonight... or maybe some Kobe beef. Yes,'_ he decided, _'that sounds delicious.'_

And so Tama completely forgot about the short-pigtails girl in favor of his dinner.

* * *

_Omake: Where in the World is Isumi Saginomiya~? _

Isumi looked at the gigantic tree trunk before her. "I wonder what that hole is for?" she wondered, looking at the hole (which could actually almost be called a small tunnel) that ran through the tree trunk.

Isumi looked around at her surroundings. There were many other trees, almost all of them comparable in size to the titanic tree with the tunnel going through it. This forest vaguely reminded her of the mountain hike on which she had met and befriended that gigantic bear... "I hope mother and grandmother remember to feed him..." she mumbled to herself even as overly amorous squirrels started to surround her.

The squirrels, with hearts in their eyes, were steadily advancing on the oblivious girl. They came closer, and closer, and closer, until….

"_Shoo! Leave her alone!_" shouted a park ranger, brandishing a flashlight at the tree-dwelling rodents, which instantly and instinctively scattered, as if they had been abruptly freed from some kind of spell or enchantment.

"Hm?" Isumi looked toward the source of the disturbance. It was tall blond man wearing the accoutrements of a United States of America park ranger. He was speaking English in the tone of one who was confused but nonetheless trying to be helpful. If Isumi remembered her lessons correctly, the man was saying something about squirrels. "_Yeah,_" she said in what she hoped was her best English, "_Please visit me... I would like to thank his hat._1"

The ranger looked at the girl before him in confusion. _'That girl must be in shock,'_ he thought, _'She's speaking gibberish!' _He cleared his throat. "Excuse me, miss. If you would come with me, I should be able to find your parents for you," the man said, hoping the girl actually spoke Japanese and wasn't just dressed like that for show.

Isumi stared at the man for a moment before answering: "_No thank you, sir. I think I can find them without your assistance,_" she answered in perfectly inflected English.

The ranger stared at the Saginomiya heiress in shock. _'Sh-she speaks better better English than me!'_ he thought with his mouth agape, both awestruck and befuddled.

"And you should probably brush up on your Japanese," Isumi added as an afterthought in the aforementioned language, before walking off and disappearing among the sequoias.

* * *

1: This was mostly for fun. She meant to say _"Oh. I see... Thank you, mister nice hat."_ I arrived at what she said by entering this sentence into _Translation Party_. With that said, I actually hope to introduce a character who fluently speaks Translation Trainwreck.

**A/N: Well, there you go.**

**TTFN and R&R!**


	2. This Is the Beginning of Not a Friend

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: Here's the next chapter! **

* * *

**Chapter Two:**

**This Is the Beginning of Not a Friendship, But a Rivalry!**

The warm rays of the morning sun touched upon the Sanzen'in estate – a sprawling luxurious mansion built in the late nineteenth century using techniques imported from all the way over in Europe. The mansion was originally commissioned by the grandfather of Nagi's grandfather (or Nagi's great-great-grandfather), Tarō Sanzen'in, a jack-of-all-trades and ruthless businessman who had quickly adopted the capitalist ideals of the industrialized West during the Meiji Restoration Period, and who made the beginnings of the vast Sanzen'in fortune by becoming one of the first men in Japan to build a factory overseas (a feat which he had accomplished by blackmailing a particularly affluent American oil baron). He had been incredibly successful in life, one of the few great tycoons to truly start with nothing, and the wealth of the Sanzen'in family had only grown since then. Indeed, this complex which covered numerous acres of land (an extremely valuable commodity in the densely-populated nation of Japan) was absolutely _modest_in comparison to some of the other properties in the possession of the impossibly affluent Sanzen'in family and their retainers.

As the sun rose overhead – a picture of absolute beauty unparalleled by any work of human hands – a richly compelling and hot-blooded voice came from Beyond the Fourth Wall. "It is a beautiful morning in Japan, the land of the rising sun. The sky is clear, and the temperature is absolutely indisputably perfect," said Narrio Wakamator(**1**) with his usual passionate vigor, "Indeed, it is such a perfectly beautiful and clear morning in Japan that none but the most absolutely depraved souls would truly wish to stay indoors!"

The picture changed to that of Nagi Sanzen'in's bed, the heavy down-filled blankets and silken sheets of which were bundled up in a sizable lump. A pair of heavily-lidded eyes peered out from within their luxurious cocoon to glare in the direction of the omnipresent narrator. "Shut up," growled the eyes, sounding remarkably like Nagi. "I'm trying to sleep,"

"Ah, but on such a wonderful day as this, only the most depraved of souls would want to stay indoors! And do you not have school today, as well?"

"..." the eyes were quiet. There was no response save a slight shuffling sound. The eyes continued to glare with enmity at the ever-enthusiastic narrator.

"Aha," said Wakamator smugly, "Clearly you are far too much of a worthless NEET to go to school, hmm?"

"Who are you talking to?" Nagi asked the thin air. She was already out of bed, brushing her teeth… but the eyes were still staring out from under the covers.

"..." Narrio was actually speechless at this unexpected development, unsure what to think or say. "... This is an unexpected development," he said finally, "but if Maria is in the kitchen and Nagi is out of her bed, then there is only one individual to whom those eyes could possibly belong!" he deduced, drawing a deep breath before exclaiming: "IT IS CLEARLY TAM–" he started, only for the covers to be suddenly thrown off, revealing the fully-dressed head-butler of the Sanzen'in family, who did not have so much as a hair out of place, "..._ Klaus_?" the narrator said dumbly, utterly bemused (as in befuddled or confused, _not_ amused) by this unexpected development. "What an unexpected development!"

"Shut up," Nagi glowered, "How many times did you use that phrase in the last paragraph? Four?" she shook her head in disappointment, "What a complete lack of creativity. And that gag?" she pointed at the ceiling, "Absolutely absurd! I mean, _really_, why on earth would Klaus be sleeping in my bed?"

"To keep an eye on milady, of course," Klaus answered simply, now standing right behind Nagi.

Nagi nodded, "Exactly," she said before doing an instant double-take, looking at Klaus in bewilderment. "Wait a minute!" she exclaimed, pointing at the mustachioed butler, "That wasn't just some throwaway gag? You were actually in my bed?-!"

Klaus nodded and bowed with one hand on his heart and the other to the side, "All to protect milady, of course."

"You're the one who needs protection, you senile pervert! If my Hayate had been here, he would have kicked your butt all the way to Timbuktu, head-butler or not!" Nagi snapped, before blushing and giving a girlish giggle, "Oh, Hayate..." she murmured, now lost deep in another fantasy about the youngest and most _bish__ō__nen_ butler in her employ.

Klaus teared up before running from the room. Dramatically soulful music played in the background as the head-butler ran in slow motion, covering his eyes one arm and shouting about how Nagi hated him now.

Nagi simply sighed in annoyance at the older man's downright childish behavior. It was amazing how contradictorily immature he could act at times like this. "What a moron..." Nagi grumbled as she set about on a most important task: convincing Maria and Hayate to let her stay home.

… If only she could find them.

* * *

Maria and Hayate sneezed. Maria looked at the _bento _style lunches she had been preparing for Hayate and Nagi. Hayate looked at the flapjacks he had been making as a special breakfast treat for the lady of the house. Sighing in unison, the two took the food which was now contaminated by their simultaneous sneeze, and scraped it into the garbage disposal (a pipe which led to the kitchens of the local homeless shelter). This was the third time today that they had been forced to start over.

"There must be a lot of people talking about us today," Hayate remarked in that seemingly unwaveringly cheerful manner of his as he poured more batter onto the griddle.

Maria giggled as she formed balls from the special rice used in her unique _onigiri _recipe. "Oh, Hayate... I suppose it is one of your charms that you can be so childish and innocent, but nonetheless, it is silly for a sixteen year-old boy to believe such quaint superstitions in this day and age."

Hayate smiled at Maria, not noticing the blush that appeared on her face as he did so. "Maybe... but I'd still rather be naïve than cynical. Without a certain amount of illusions to shelter one from the unrelenting horror that is life, it is impossible for one to thrive emotionally – that's what I believe. Don't you agree, Maria-chan?" Hayate inquired. The moment the words had left his mouth, Hayate realized that he had, in his exhaustion from working for so many hours with so little sleep, accidentally used the cutesy and familiar _chan_ honorific instead of the intended formal and polite _san_. He mentally kicked himself and hoped that Maria wouldn't be offended or angry with him for that _faux pas_.

Ironically, Maria was feeling something in the opposite end of the spectrum from 'offended' or 'angry': she was instead stunned but giddy, assuming that her relationship with Hayate had just leveled up from _acquaintances _to _close-friends_. Her heart fluttered at this thought, and she had to think of Klaus in thongs with a matching thong to stem the tide of indecent thoughts that threatened to overwhelm her defenses. "Y-yes, of course..." she nodded absentmindedly even as the mental image of Klaus was replaced by Hayate in an old-fashioned _sera fuku_ schoolgirl uniform, bashfully lifting up the front of his skirt to reveal....

Maria's temperature increased by several degrees and she grew dizzy, which did not go unnoticed by Hayate who, being kind soul that he was, asked if she was feeling well.

"Are you feeling okay, Maria-san?" asked Hayate with a worried expression as he put a hand on her shoulder, "You look like you have a fever."

"I-it's nothing," Maria stammered even as she felt herself get hotter, "A-and please, there's no reason for you to address me so formally, Ayasaki-kun," she said, dismayed and slightly confused that Hayate had stopped using _chan_ almost as quickly as he had started. Then her legs turned to gelatin from the indebted butler's touch.

Hayate made a move as if he were intending to catch Maria in a loving embrace (or at least, this was how _she _perceived it), which caused the Maria to briefly lose her balance, only to be steadied by Hayate turning her around and wrapping his arms around her waist, which had the unintended side-effect of bringing their respective nether-regions dangerously close. "You should get some rest, Maria. I wouldn't be able to focus on my schoolwork if I knew you were working while ill," Hayate said in a firm tone.

Maria gasped slightly as she felt herself melt into Hayate's arms. She moaned. "B-be gentle, Hayate..." she whimpered. The two stood there locked in embrace for what seemed like a blissful eternity to Maria, but was actually closer to around twenty seconds. Nonetheless, the genius maid wished it could last forever.

"I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?" came the smug voice of Wataru Tachibana, the relatively niggardly (as in cheap or miserly) heir to the Tachibana Corporation.

Maria blushed and began frantically denying anything and everything, while inwardly cursing Wataru for interrupting her and Hayate's moment. _'Why did he have to come here now, as opposed to any other time of the day? A few more minutes, and Hayate and I could have…'_Maria blushed, but no one else noticed, as Wataru was busy hounding Hayate for a rental payment. "Wait..." Maria realized, "Where is Kijima-san?"

Wataru stopped bugging Hayate for a minute to look at Maria oddly, "What are you talking about? Saki's right behind me," he said, gesturing towards one of Nagi's many busts of Conan Edogawa.

Maria and Hayate looked at the bust, then looked back at Wataru expectantly. "... Are you feeling well, Wataru-kun?" Maria asked the indignant boy.

"It must be jet-lag," remarked Hayate, pounding a fist into his palm as though he had just found the answer to a difficult question. He then gave Wataru's fist back to its nonplussed (as in shocked or, literally, unable to do anything more) owner.

Maria nodded her head in agreement, "Yes," she agreed, "that does seem like a probable explanation for why Master Tachibana is acting so strangely...."

Wataru's eyebrow twitched.

"But what should we do with him?" wondered Hayate, "I do not feel comfortable letting him go anywhere like this...."

Wataru sighed in exasperation. "You know what? Forget it. I _was_going to see Nagi about something important, but I give up. You two are impossible to deal with when you get like this."

Hayate and Maria didn't hear him – they were two busy fretting over his supposed jet-lag.

Wataru snorted in disgust. "C'mon, Saki, let's go home," he said as he turned to go, only to notice that Saki was nowhere in sight, "What the...?" he muttered confusedly, "Now where'd she go?" he wondered.

Wataru thought for a few seconds, before saying, "Fine then," he sighed resignedly. He turned back and walked up to Maria, clearing his throat before very loudly asking her, "May I touch your breasts, Maria?"

The maid said nothing, too stunned to even utter her reply.

Wataru continued on anyways, this time declaring, "Thanks, I'll go right ahead, then," loudly enough to wake the dead.

Instantly, Wataru was tackled to the ground by a green-haired blur. "No, sir! I cannot allow you to do something so indecent to my virginal, less-attractive _k__ō__hai_!" exclaimed his comically prudish, borderline-hebephilic(**2**) maid, not noticing the death-glares she was receiving from said junior.

Wataru rolled his eyes and, with considerable effort considering their relative sizes, pushed Saki off. "It's nice to see you too..." he grumbled sarcastically, annoyed at having to stoop so low to get Saki to show up. "By the way, where _were_ you?"

Saki scratched the back of her head sheepishly. "Sorry, sir. I was afraid that Ayasaki-san might be here," she explained.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Hayate apologetically as he put a hand on the clumsy maid's shoulder, "I suppose you must still be upset about that," he said, not bothering to elaborate as to what "that" was.

Saki just about jumped off her ass into the air from shock. "Eek!" she screeched reflexively, kicking Hayate in the groin before trying to hide behind her diminutive master. "Save me, sir!" she yelped.

Wataru winced in sympathy at the sight of Hayate doubled over and holding back dry heaves, and he shook his head. _'I'm not gonna get within a mile of this,'_ he decided prudently.

Saki turned to Maria with pleading look. Maria frowned disapprovingly at Saki. "I don't know what happened between you two," she stated calmly, shrewdly taking note of the fierce blush that appeared on older maid's face at those words, "but I highly doubt Hayate did anything bad enough to deserve that," she gently rebuked her impulsive but well-meaning _sempai_.

Saki nodded her head absentmindedly, not really listening to her fellow maid's lecture. She was too busy watching Hayate to make sure he didn't try anything funny to pay any significant amount of attention to what Maria was saying. _'Honestly,'_ Saki thought bitterly to herself, _'is Maria-san so infatuated with that butler that she cannot see through to his true nature? Hayate Ayasaki is an enemy to all women!'_ Saki clenched her fist as she glared childishly at the butler whom she held responsible for the increasing frequent inappropriate thoughts she had been having about her underage master. _'How could Maria have forgotten everything I taught her about men?' _

_"Hey, Maria! Maria! Guess what?" an energetic younger Saki eagerly entreated her talented junior._

_"What?" asked a disinterested-looking Maria who was polishing the various medals she had earned during her time as the most amazing student in the history of the prestigious Hakuō Academy._

_"My grandmother made me master a new mnemonic! She calls it 'The Thirteen M's'. Wanna hear it?"_

_"Sure," Maria smiled._

_"Okay! It goes: 'Most Men are Menacingly Malicious Molesters who Must Masturbate Madly at the Mere Mention of Magnificently Moral Maidens (like us)'. Always remember this, Maria-san. Promise me this!" she desperately begged her immensely talented kōhai._

_"Okay, Saki-san, I promise." Maria assured her overly emotional sempai._

Saki sighed nostalgically. _'It seems like it was only yesterday…' _she thought morosely.

* * *

A few moments later, as Maria was wrapping up her short sermon on the importance of avoiding misunderstandings, feeling began to return to Hayate's groin. He started to tentatively stand up, only to knocked back onto his ass by a sudden declaration of "What's up, bitches?" from none other than his mistress: Nagi Sanzen'in.

"Milady!" Hayate exclaimed, more out of surprise than anything else, "You're… up," he finished lamely, unable to actually think of anything else to say at that particular moment.

Nagi giggled coyly, a blush creeping onto her face, "And I see I'm not the only the only one," she replied as she stared in fascination at a certain thing below her butler's proverbial belt.

Feeling vindicated in her belief that Hayate was a shameless pervert, Saki watched as hapless butler frantically tried to cover the bulge in his pants, and she blushed from a mixture of disgust and embarrassment. _'How vulgar!'_

Wataru rubbed his temples. _'So Hayate's a masochist, huh? Great,'_ he sighed, _'another thing I could have happily lived my entire life without knowing,'_ he thought while idly wondering if there was some way that could simply forget everything that had happened so far that day. _'I must have really pissed off someone important in a past life to deserve being stuck in the company of these lunatics.'_

For his part, Hayate squirmed self-consciously under everyone's scrutiny while pointedly avoiding his mistress's eyes. _'Lady Nagi must be completely disgusted… Her face looks like she's furious,'_ he thought, misinterpreting the blush on the heiress's face as a sign of rage. Unbidden, tears began to well up in his eyes, and he ran off to his room in shame.

Saki felt a twinge of guilt at the sight of Hayate's grief, and she ran off after him.

Nagi frowned in slight disappointment at the fact that Hayate's sudden fit meant that she would not be able to more closely inspect him, but an opportunistic part of her mind told her to later check the hidden state-of-the-art closed-circuit hi-def surveillance cameras that she had secretly installed in his bedroom and private bathroom a while back. If he did what she secretly hoped he was going to do, then Nagi was sure she would be able to "study" the footage of it at her leisure… and since Hamster-chan had been so nice the day before, Nagi would probably even share it with her....

* * *

At an undisclosed location, Ayumu sneezed into her 'Quintuple Volcano Hot Chocolate Lava Orgasm' sundae. Shrugging a moment later, she finished it off. After all, they were _her_ germs, so it was not like she would get sick from it.

Then she politely excused herself from the table to go to the bathroom.

* * *

Back with Nagi, she and Wataru were in a _washitsu_ Japanese-styled room complete with a _sh__ō__ji_ sliding door constructed in the traditional fashion from special _washi_ paper and a bamboo grid, _tatami_ mats for the floor, a single futon in the far end of the room, and a _tokonoma _or alcove holding a number of valuable works of art. At a size of four and a half _j__ō_(or roughly nine feet by nine feet in the Nagoya region) it was modest in comparison to the other rooms in the compound. The only visible concession to Western influence was an antique radio that had actually been installed by Tarō Sanzen'in when the mansion was first finished.

The recalcitrant duo of fiance and fiancee were sitting in _seiza _style opposite one another, dressed in traditional Japanese formal garb, with an antique _sakazuki_ (a ceremonial Japanese saucer for holding sake) filled with vintage _Squelch's _grape juice sitting between them. They had sent Maria away for a tray of rice cakes.

"So… how about that stock market?" Nagi ventured in hopes of breaking the awkward silence. She grabbed the saucer and took a sip of juice, then she passed it to Wataru.

"Yep," Wataru gave a hearty sigh of contentment after his sip, like the kind that Yukiji Katsura would make after a particularly good draught of beer, and he handed the saucer back to Nagi, "Did you hear about that scandal over in Las Vegas?"

"The one about that under-aged tourist who was forced to strip at an underground gambling match? Yeah, I heard about it," she nodded thoughtfully as she took another sip. "Why do you ask?" she inquired as she passed the saucer back to Wataru.

"Saki and I were late getting back because of it."

"No kidding? What happened? Did they close down the airport or something?"

"Nah, the police were just interrogating me and Saki. You know, like they do in those cop shows."

Nagi's eyes widened slightly as she accepted the proffered saucer. "What, were you a suspect?"

Wataru shook his head. "Witnesses," he said simply, accepting the saucer back from Nagi and taking another sip.

Nagi smirked. "I see…" she muttered snidely, "So Wataru is a pedophile now…"

Wataru was flabbergasted. "Wha…?" he mumbled in confusion, before glaring at Nagi when realization dawned on him, "It's not like that!" he huffed indignantly. "The tourist who was forced to strip was Sakuya, and the match was held by my delinquent mother," he explained.

Nagi stared at him. "... That explains _so much_," she whispered at last.

"Shaddup!" Wataru snapped, "That's not the point!" He looked into the now empty saucer with a sigh. "What I'm trying to tell you is that someone snuck into the country with me!"

Nagi's eyes were wide in shock. "You smuggled someone into the country?-!" she exclaimed in disbelief.

"No, I didn't! He hid in Saki's suitcase!"

Nagi eyed Wataru skeptically, "And how did he do that, hm?"

Wataru growled in annoyance at Nagi's attitude. "I don't know how, okay? Dammit, Nagi!" he snapped, "I come here for moral support as your fiance, and you can't even give me the benefit of a doubt?-! You--"

Whatever Wataru was about to say next was stopped by Nagi putting her finger on his lips. "Idiot," she admonished with a grumble and an angry blush, her brusque words completely at odds with the intimacy of the gesture, "Of course I believe you. I was just messing around."

"Oh," was all Wataru could say when Nagi finally removed her finger. The two of them stood there for a moment, neither one moving.

"Yeah," Nagi replied, reattaching her finger to her hand and nervously clearing her throat. "Anyways, did you have a reason for coming here to tell me that?" she asked in a businesslike manner.

"Yes," Wataru replied, "Listen, Nagi: the moment Saki opened her suitcase, the guy ran out of the store. In the suitcase… well, there was a letter… and...."

Nagi tapped her foot impatiently. "Yeah?"

"Nagi… The letter was addressed to one '_Dire Rat_'. That man… he's a world-class assassin… and he's after your head," Wataru finished grimly. His voice was hollow, and he sounded uncharacteristically afraid for Nagi's well-being.

"So? Is that it?" Nagi was not just unperturbed, she was completely unimpressed, "If anyone comes after me – I don't care who they are, or what kind of weapons or awesome powers they have – they'll fail, because Hayate will protect me. He'll protect me from anyone who tries to hurt me. He promised me that, and he isn't the kind of a coward who would go back on a promise!" she declared without a doubt as a blush came onto her face.

What came next happened to quickly for the two to respond. A dart flew through the air, missing Nagi's jugular by a hair's width. When it planted itself in the wall, it sent several noticeable cracks through the plaster. Nagi and Wataru could only gape in shock.

"_I do not think you quite grasp the gravity of your situation, miss,_" came a coolly confident voice speaking French, "_The rat's in the cradle, and the infant is already dead,_" he said as several more darts struck true, pinning Nagi and Wataru's ceremonial robes to the wall, leaving the two in their normal clothes.

"... the hell?" Nagi wondered eloquently, "How did in the world did he _do_ that? And why on earth is he speaking French?"

"_Would you prefer if I spoke in Greek?_" the unseen man inquired condescendingly in the aforementioned language, earning an annoyed expression from Nagi a few moments later, once she figured out what he had said.

"No, we would prefer if you would **GO AND DIE**, dummy!" Nagi taunted without any heed for her own safety, belting out a multitude of her most withering insults. Or at least, she tried. However, the word 'dummy' had barely passed her lips when she felt the cold edge of a butter knife dig into her throat. _'S-so fast...' _Nagi thought in fear and shock. The assassin had appeared before her so suddenly, that for a moment she thought that he must have already been there(**3**).

"I'm afraid I cannot comply," the assassin known Dire Rat replied in a cheerful tone (this time speaking in Japanese), as he pressed the edge of the knife against one of Nagi's jugular veins. Then he sliced, and everything went to Hell in a hand-basket.

* * *

_Omake: An Evil Mastermind...?_

Ayumu grinned wickedly. Her plans were so quickly coming to fruition.

_"Pl-please… I beg of you...!"_

She took the instrument in her hand, and jammed it in, reveling in feelings of triumph.

_"Aaauuugh! UUUNNNGGAAAAAHHH"_

Applying a little bit of torque, she tore a large scoop from her target. She licked her lips.

_"N-no… Anything but that...!"_

With an evil grin, Ayumu stuck the mess in her mouth, savoring the guilty pleasure, before swallowing it whole.

_"Noooo! Please… don't… Have mercy on us!" _

Cackling sinisterly, she finished off what was left, making sure to dispose of any evidence. It would not do to have her parents find out, after all.

_"SISTER! NOOOOOO!"_

Tinny screams of agony came from her parents bedroom. Ayumu was fortunate that they were so engrossed in that torture porn of theirs, disturbing as it was to listen to. After all, she would probably be grounded for a week if they found out she had been eating ice cream after midnight again.

* * *

1: This is my nickname for the narrator. It is a portmanteau of the name of the legendary Japanese voice actor _Norio Wakamoto_, who provides the voice of the narrator in the anime, and the word _narrator_. The first _a_ in _Narrio _and the third _a_ in _Wakamator_ are pronounced like the first and second _a_, respectively, in the word _narrator_.

2: _Hebephilia _is the sexual attraction to pubescent individuals, such as Wataru Tachibana or Nagi Sanzen'in (even if the latter doesn't really look like it). It is not to be confused with the somewhat similar _pedophilia _(the sexual attraction to prepubescent individuals, such as Chiyo Mihama or Yotsuba Koiwai, from _Azumanga Daioh _and _Yotsubato/Yotsuba& _respectively) or _ephebophilia_(the sexual attraction to individuals in late adolescence, such as Hayate Ayasaki or post time-skip Naruto Uzumaki from _Naruto_).

3: A fun fact: your brain is full of shit. That is, if you don't actually observe a change happen, your brain will tell you it was always like that. This phenomenon is called "change blindness", and it is both hilarious and terrifying.

**A/N: … Hot damn… This came out to be much, much longer than I had anticipated. So much so, that this is actually only about half of what I had had planned for this chapter. **

**TTFN and R&R!**


	3. Q: Who Would Win in a Fight Between a

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: Here is the next chapter of _Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!_ I hope y'all enjoy it. … And sorry that it took so long to update again. I got busy, what with watching _Slayers_ and working on my term papers and things like that. ^^U **

* * *

**Chapter Three:**

**Q: Who Would Win in a Fight Between a World-Class Assassin and a World-Class Butler?**

Nagi barely had time to scream. There was no way for her to defend herself from the attack.

Wataru could only watch in terror, his body unable to move. His heart was beating so violently that he feared it should fail, tearing itself apart in its zeal. Nagi's survival... was impossible, at best.

What came next happened all too quickly for anyone to react.

There was a roar. A black and white blur crashed into Dire Rat, throwing him against the opposite wall and giving Wataru and Nagi an opening for escape, which they gladly took.

Dire Rat swore violently as stood back up. His spine popped as his vertebrae were forced back into their proper alignment. He stared at the tiger with a mixture of frustration and disbelief.

Tama, for his part, did not hesitate one bit to press the attack, driving his left fore-paw through the spot where the unfortunate killer's head had just been. _'I must save Lady Nagi!'_ was the loyal pet's only thought.

Dire Rat's right foot was a blur, striking Tama in the ribs. Luckily for the feline, as the single largest species of cat alive tigers possessed immense body mass, a trait which worked wonders for dampening the effects of kicks and punches.

The tiger twisted, and with deceptive agility he swiped at Dire Rat, who narrowly managed to avoid having his face torn from the rest of his skull. However, Tama did not stop there. Lunging and feinting, slashing and biting, the tiger managed to corner the Rat.

_'You know, in retrospect, I probably could have planned this out a little better,' _Dire Rat thought morosely, as he looked at the large white tiger that had somehow managed to push Nagi out of the way without her throat getting cut. _'For one thing, I probably should have used something sharper than a butter knife – while the thought of taking the life of someone as arrogant as a Sanzen'in with such an implement certainly is an alluring prospect, it is not worth getting eaten alive by a freaking tiger.'_

With a roar, Tama lunged at the assassin. "_For Norio-sama!"_ he shouted in Tiger-ese.

_'For the last time,'_ Tama's conscience snarled in response, _'I! AM!_ _**NOT!**__ NORIO WAKAMOTO! _

Dire Rat could only laugh grimly to himself, _'At least it ain't a bear,'_ he thought with the kind of morbid humor unique to those who know their lives to be forfeit. Strangely enough, at that very moment Isumi's enormous pet bruin decided to nonchalantly walk past (knocking down several walls in the process) with one of the mansion's refrigerators in its mouth.

Unexpectedly, the young and talented Saginomiya heiress popped up out of the bear's fur, confusion evident on her face. "Excuse me, sir," she asked Dire Rat, "Which way is it to Rio de Janeiro?"

"...." said Dire Rat, his mouth agape. He was simply struck speechless at the absolute madness which seemed to be so inherent to this place. This was simply preposterous! He had single-handedly taken down entire drug cartels with ease! _'How can this be happening?' _thought Dire Rat disbelievingly, _'I'm supposed to be the best there is! How the hell can this be happening?_

_'Why can't I kill this one little girl?-!' _he desperately asked himself. Catatonic, he pointed in the general direction of the nearest airport.

"Thank you for your help, sir," Isumi bowed graciously before heading somewhere in the general area of the direction in which the hyperventilating hit man had pointed.

Dire Rat then turned back to look at his target, only to realize that she and the boy had fled while he was distracted, leaving behind only the tiger (who was still flying at him through the air in slow-motion).

"…." Dire Rat promptly broke down into hysterics. He could hear the mocking laughter of people he had never even met before, taunting his inability to do so much as kill a child. In his mind's eye, he saw beautiful young women covering their mouths with paper fans as they cruelly laughed at him. _'Ohohohoho~!'_ they went, '_Perhaps your utter failure as an assassin is a sign of impotence!' _they teased ruthlessly, their eyes like bottomless pits.

Dire Rat clenched his fists in powerless rage. His vision was filled with red, the blood pounding in his head. _'Yes…_' thought he, even as his sanity disintegrated from exposure to the innate madness of the Sanzen'in family, the very madness which had consumed Nagi's father like the unforgiving fires of Hell. _'This is the state described by my sensei…'_ he chuckled deliriously, _'The Madness is usurping my cerebral faculties, leaving only killer instinct and the reflexes obtained from my training… I have transcended fear; I have become Death, destroyer of worlds!'_ he thought triumphantly as he took an obscure martial arts stance. "Never again...! Never again shall I fail! I swore this to myself, so many years ago!

"Hear me now, mortal fools," he growled with a look of utter determination upon his face as he artfully drew a ninja-tō and a semi-automatic off-brand glock from the depths of his trench coat, "for this is my nindō!" he loaded his gun and threw it up in the air.

"As long as I can move…" he swung the ninja-tō in his left hand, cleanly slicing through a Ming vase several feet away in an alcove.

"As long as I draw breath…" he threw the sword up into the air.

"I will never be bested by human efforts!" he shouted as he caught the falling pistol and screwed on a homemade silencer in a single fluid motion.

"For I am the scourge which cleanses mankind, ridding it of the unworthy," Dire Rat continued, catching his sword as it came back down.

"I lurk in the shadow of Azrael, apprentice to his Art," he swiftly switched the sword to his right hand and the glock to his left, then he switched them back just as quickly.

"I come in the night, bringing death to all," he drew a deep breath and brandished his sword confidently, slicing up the tatami mats which composed the flooring merely from the air currents stirred up by this action.

Tama continued to fly through the air, snarling viciously as he did so. A heavy metal version of his mistress's theme song was playing in the background.

Dire Rat stomped once, then twice, shaking the building to its foundations, and he loosed a guttural cry."I am the merciless executioner! I am the discerning dagger! I am death incarnate! I am the Black Death! I! AM! **DIRE RAT!**" he howled, triumphant in his boast.

He turned back to Tama, who had somehow not yet reached him. "Let's do this," he said with smug finality.

Tama roared in agreement, and the two clashed.

* * *

The scene shifted to a peaceful meadow, relaxing music playing in the background.

"The following scene was deemed by censors to be too violent for inclusion in this fanfic," said Narrio Wakamator, "so here is some fanservice to make up for it."

* * *

Hinagiku, in nothing more than a sports-bra and a pair of "spats" tight enough to give any onlooker an ample view of her excellently toned buns of steel, watched in awe and confused arousal as Ayumu, who was dressed in very casual clothing that clung to her just enough to show that she had decided to go bra-less that day, demonstrated the proper technique for swallowing a hot dog in one bite.

"... And when you can that without gagging, you will be ready to fellate any guy you want," Ayumu finished as she casually tied another cherry stem into a knot with her tongue.

Hinagiku stared at Nishizawa in utter shock. "Th-th-that was… huh?" she stuttered as she felt her face turn beet red. She self-consciously looked down at her breasts, and, dismayed at how small they seemed in comparison to Ayumu's, she frowned, pressing them together in hopes of making them look bigger.

Ayumu smirked at how self-conscious Hinagiku was acting. _'That bish__ō__jo-inator_ _really works wonders,'_ she thought as she patted the remote-shaped device in her pocket. She then tackled Hinagiku to the floor with an incredibly sexy yuri-glomp.

And there was much rejoicing amongst the fanboys (and some fangirls), for yea, it is written that girl on girl is hot. Amen.

* * *

Back with the plot, Dire Rat was lying in a crumpled heap covered in blood and sweat and bit of urine. Standing over the felled assassin was the white tiger Tama doing a victory dance while Shiranui, the formerly-stray kitten, performed back up with a caterwauling rendition of the Final Fantasy victory tune. The two were, for the time being, united in their victory over a common foe.

Maria, having just returned with the rice cakes that Lady Nagi had requested, looked at the scene of chaos spread out before her. While she still made just as certain as always to project that outward appearance of utter unflappability, inwardly she was groaning at the thought of having to clean up this mess. _'Who is that on the floor?'_ she wondered, hopeful for a way out of having to clean up by herself. She looked at Dire Rat's prone, battered form. _'And where are milady and Tachibana-kun?'_ She sighed. "What in the world happened here...?"

Dire Rat grumbled incoherently, shifting his weight as he attempted to pick himself up. He could already feel the strength returning to his limbs...

-THUD-

… but it simply wasn't enough. Tama had beaten him _badly_. It would take much more than sheer guts if Dire Rat wanted to successfully eliminate his target. Indeed, he would need to resort to the kind of underhanded trickery that only one with a dangerous amount of genre-savvy could hope to successfully perform. And her would also need a sucker, in case things went south again.

Maria noted how the man appeared to be struggling, and she felt conflicted over what to do. On the one hand, the man, while ridiculously nondescript in appearance, had the aura of one with villainous intent. On the other hand, it would be terribly rude for her to simply leave him unattended when he was clearly in so much pain. In the end, Maria's kindness won out over her suspicions, and she decided to help the poor man.

_'Besides,'_ Maria thought, _'if worse comes to worst, I'll be on hand to put him down,' _she thought nonchalantly. The bright smile she gave Dire Rat as she held out her hand to help him up was deceptively sweet – like peanut butter on a mousetrap.

Dire Rat looked at the proffered hand, then up to maid to whom the hand belonged. He grinned inwardly. _'She looks like she'll do nicely… I can practically taste the killer instinct…'_ He accepted her hand while resisting the urge to smirk victoriously, and she pulled him up into a standing position, supporting the man's weight to keep him from falling down again.

It was destined to become a thoroughly acerbic-saccharine acquaintanceship – a rivalry to split the heavens.

* * *

Klaus looked at the sight before him in horror. _'How can it be?' _he asked him. _'Why is _he_ here?-!'_

Maria was tending to an injured man in one of the guest rooms. This, while a somewhat uncommon occurrence, was hardly notable in and of itself. No, it was the identity of the man whom she was caring for that made Klaus shudder. There was only one possible reason for that man's presence, and it was something that Klaus had dreaded ever since Mikado had announced the rules of his mad game. Someone had decided to hire the world-class assassin Dire Rat to take out Nagi so they could claim the Sanzen'in family inheritance.

It was a frightful prospect, but Klaus had prepared for it. With catlike stealth, he sneaked up on the two in hopes of quickly dispatching the assassin. However, this plan was thwarted when he stepped on a conveniently placed rubber duck. It made a cacophonous squeak, alerting everyone to the head butler's presence.

Klaus flinched. So much for that plan.

Maria looked at the elderly manservant. "Excuse me, Klaus-san, but what are you doing?" she asked with narrowed eyes.

Klaus began to sweat, and he cleared his throat out of nervous habit, "N-nothing!" he stammered. He had hoped he would be able to strike first and explain everything to Maria later, but it looked like he would have to do things in the reverse order.

Maria stared at Klaus, suspicion evident in her eyes. "… Somehow, I highly doubt that."

Klaus sweat-dropped. He hazarded a glance towards Dire Rat, who was lazily fiddling with a hunting knife while staring at Maria's behind.

Maria followed Klaus's gaze, and she saw Dire Rat whistling innocently while twiddling his fingers. She turned back to look at Klaus questioningly. _'It seems that you know something about this person…'_ she thought, _'… but what?'_

Maria, despite her youth, was well wise to the ways of the world; she needed to be, in order to protect her lady from corrupting influences. She knew that the circumstances regarding the sudden appearance of this stranger were more than a little suspicious, but without hard evidence there was nothing she could legally do. Thus, it was necessary that she cared for the man, if only to keep him within arm's reach.

Klaus's strange behavior, however, now seemed to vindicate her suspicions. The head butler, as eccentric as he may be, was nonetheless well acquainted with the international underworld. Therefore, there were many things he knew that, in the wrong hands, could turn the world on its head. Among these things, were the identities of countless ruthless criminal masterminds and various "specialists" of the morally dubious variety.

Maria sighed inwardly. _'I know that there is something going on… but I don't know _what _it is. Dammit!' _she wanted to clench her fists, but she kept her appearance immaculately stoic,_ 'I hate feeling this way… __**I hate this feeling of ignorance!**__'_ Nonetheless, Maria smiled, denying herself the luxury of betraying her inner turmoil and worry.

She was not perfect: there were many things she was simply incapable of doing, but her façade was impeccable. The ability to create a false front, to conceal all weakness behind an inscrutable vizard… this was her ultimate talent. Her smile was the unbreakable wall of Jericho. Even when she was powerless, Maria could simply smile and act like everything was under control. She was the pillar that supported the Sanzen'in house – as long as she continued to stand, everything would be all right. As long as she smiled, the others could rely on her, laying their fear and uncertainty at her feet.

"Come to think of it," Maria spoke up, eyeing Dire Rat suspiciously, "you never told me your name," she said pointedly.

"W-w-w-what brought this up?" the injured assassin stammered fearfully.

"Nothing," Maria replied dismissively, "I'm simply curious." The threat behind her words, though it was left unspoken, got through to Dire Rat with perfect clarity.

Dire Rat gulped. He had no doubts about whether or not he could beat someone in a fair fight: he knew fully well that he was weak. He could only fight competently when going mad – and considering the fact that he was painfully lucid at the moment, the odds were clearly against him.

His options were painfully limited. If he revealed his true identity, he would be taken down before he could blink. If he tried to fight his way out, he would probably never get another chance at Nagi even if he did somehow survive. Running would have similar consequences.

Dire Rat sighed internally. His only two remaining choices were self-termination or lying. And there was really only one logical choice… So he bit down on the cyanide pill that he had been hiding under his tongue.

* * *

Ayumu smiled as she nibbled on a sugar cookie. "Yum!" she exclaimed eagerly, praising the baking abilities of the adoptive mother of the Katsura siblings. "These cookies are delicious!"

Hinagiku sweat-dropped at how happily Ayumu was devouring the sweets. "Hey, slow down. You'll get sick if you eat too many sweets, you know."

Nishizawa hissed at the pink-haired girl. "NEVER!" she snarled as she hunched protectively over the cookies. There was fire in her eyes.

Chuckling nervously, Hinagiku stood down. _'Creepy...'_ was what was going through her mind. It was downright unnerving, the way Ayumu could act so vicious when her food was threatened.

"OM NOM NOM," Nishizawa quickly devoured the remaining cookies. Then she blew a raspberry at Hinagiku. "None for you!" she declared childishly.

"Hey! That wasn't very nice!"

"Neither was you trying to take away my cookies!"

"I wasn't doing anything of the sort!" Hinagiku protested, "I was simply making an observation!"

"Then go to an observatory!" Ayumu pointed at the rosette.

"Don't point at me!" Hinagiku rebuked her friend, "Why are you acting so immature?-!" she stomped hypocritically.

"Because I eat to fill void in my heart!" Ayumu sniffled loudly before bursting out in tears. "Compared to someone like you, who is smart and strong and pretty… How could I have any chance at Hayate-kun?-!" she sobbed, grabbing Hinagiku in an iron bear-hug.

"Umm…" Hinagiku was unsure what to say, partly because the hug was cutting off the circulation to her brain. "There, there, I'm sure it'll be all right…" she comforted her distraught companion, "After all, I can't even compare to you in the breast department…" there was just hint of resentment in her voice, but it went unnoticed by Ayumu.

"B-b-but-but-but, what if Hayate-kun doesn't like breasts? What if he's an ass man?-!" Nishizawa wept hysterically.

Hinagiku sweat-dropped. While Ayumu did have a point in that not all men automatically went for large breasts, her assumption that such men must then be obsessed with derrieres was somewhat faulty. The surprisingly large market for foot fetishism put a sizable hole in the girl's theory.

Not that Hinagiku was about to point this out. After all, even a staunch heterosexual like herself had to admit that, the risk of asphyxiation aside, the feelings caused by Nishizawa's hug were rather pleasant, even if they were only the innocently fuzzy warmth of a perfectly platonic hug.

Idly, the younger Katsura sibling wondered whether Nishizawa was drunk. After a moment of contemplation, she dismissed this thought as absurd. After all, where would a minor get alcohol? Hinagiku took a sip of milk-tea when Ayumu loosened her grip.

Hinagiku's face grew flushed. _'Yes,'_ she thought confidently, _'there's no way that Ayumu could possibly be drunk.'_ She hiccuped and drew Ayumu back into a hug.

* * *

Dire Rat waited expectantly. It had been several minutes since he had bitten down on the pill, but nothing had happened yet. He was not even feeling woozy. _'… why aren't I dead yet? Am I somehow immune to cyanide? Or did I get a bad batch?'_

Maria watched the stranger sitting there, waiting for him to answer her question. For a brief moment, she thought she saw a look of confusion flit across the man's face, but she decided that it must have been a trick of the light.

_'Hmm... What should we have for dinner?'_ Klaus wondered. As it was the first day of school after the break, it only made sense that they should have a large dinner, and it was never too early to plan. The only problem was that Klaus could not decide between Salisbury steak or filleted salmon.

Dire Rat looked around at the room he was in. It was a medium-sized western-style bedroom. Various paintings adorned the walls. Some of them were originals, but they were mostly reproductions of various famous and not-so-famous works, primarily from the European Renaissance and Early Modern Age.

There was a very well-done reproduction of Philippe de Champaigne's _Vanitas_, a still-life which depicted a flower, a skull, and an hourglass. Under the panting was a plaque reading: _Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas._

A few feet away from that, there hung together copies of three of the German master Albrecht Dürer's most famous woodcuts: _Der heilige Hieronymus im Gehäus_, which depicted Saint Jerome writing at his desk with a lion and a sleeping dog lying down in the foreground; _Ritter, Tod und Teufel_, which included a knight in full armor bearing a lance and riding a horse, a crowned corpse bearing an hourglass and covered in serpents standing in the background before the knight, and an indescribably grotesque rendition of a beastly Satan in the background behind the knight; and _Melencolia I_, an engraving of two angels sitting and working outside a shack beside the ocean whilst tools of carpentry lay uselessly, strewn about the two figures.

All in all, the overwhelming number of pictures in the room produced a rather gaudy effect.

"EEEEEK!" A shrill cry suddenly pierced the air, and Saki Kijima ran into the room. Her face was buried in her hands and she appeared to be blushing fiercely.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Hayate ran into the room after her, profusely apologizing for… something.

Klaus and Maria watched the two running in circles around the room.

"How could you do something like that in the presence of a lady!-?"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't know you were there!"

"You're a liar and a pervert!" Saki exclaimed tearfully.

"I know!" Hayate declared mournfully, tears streaming down his face as he continued to chase Saki, "I disgust myself!" _'How can I be so horrible? Even this morning, I woke up with one!'_ "I'm so sorry, Kijima-san! Please find it in your heart to forgive me!"

"Never!"

Deciding to intervene, Klaus tripped Hayate on his next pass, causing him to fly through the air and land smack dab on top of Saki.

"EEEEEK!"

SLAP!

Hayate flew across the room and crashed into the wall, causing several paintings to fall onto the the hardwood floor. "Oww…" he moaned. He might have taken far worse blows before, but it still _hurt_. He was only human, after all.

"Hmph, you handled that rather poorly, boy," said Klaus as walked over to the boy. "Any Sanzen'in butler worth his salt can easily run down a panicking maid."

Maria's eyebrow twitched. That comment could very easily be taken as a sexist remark.

Klaus offered Hayate his hand, and the boy happily reclaimed it.

With a small smile, Maria turned to go help the catatonic Saki.

A glint of light out of the corner of her eye was Maria's only warning. Like lightning, Dire Rat smoothly lashed out with his knife, grazing the tip of Maria's cheek.

Maria looked at Dire Rat.

Dire held up his knife for her to see.

Maria's eyes widened in shock. There was a purplish substance dripping from the knife. _'Poison!'_ she deduced. Feeling her knees go weak, Maria schooled her face into a calm expression. "Where is the antidote?" she inquired.

Dire Rat smirked. "Why would I have an antidote with me?"

"Do you want the intradiegetic explanation or the extradiegetic one(1)?"

Dire Rat chuckled. "Heh, why not both?"

Maria nodded. "'In case you poisoned someone whom you didn't intend to poison' for the former, and 'because genre conventions state that you, as a villain who has poisoned one of the main characters in his first appearance, will likely make an ultimatum demanding whatever it is that you seek in exchange for my well-being."

Dire Rat laughed. "I'm a villain, am I? Heh," he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "Well in that case, who's to say I'll actually give up the antidote? What's to keep me from, hypothetically. taking what I want and leaving you to die?"

"Because you wouldn't get five feet before being taken down. After all, the heroes always win."

"Except when they lose."

"But does this seem like that kind of story to you? We're breaking the fourth wall, Tama thinks his conscience is Norio Wakamoto, and your fight was even skipped over for a fanservice scene. Face it, you don't stand a chance," Maria stated confidently.

"You're forgetting one thing," pointed out Dire Rat.

"What?"

"The Inverse Ninja Rule."

"… crap."

Saki cocked her head to the side. "Inverse Ninja Rule? What's that mean?"

"It means," explained Klaus, "that we don't stand a chance. In groups much larger than three, ninja are little more than cannon-fodder, three ninja are about on par with a mini-boss, two ninja are a formidable fighting force, and a lone ninja is death on legs. I have a feeling that this guy would be perfectly willing to exploit this."

"… oh. That's not good."

Klaus nodded. "Yes," he turned towards the assassin. "Well then, Dire Rat, what are your demands?" he asked, catching Maria before she could collapse.

"Right to the point, eh? I like you already." Dire Rat grinned evilly. "I want you to bring me the King's Stone."

* * *

Nagi stood up sharply from the game of New Super Mario Brothers that she and Wataru were playing in a cluttered media-room. "Did you feel that?" she asked the boy.

"Feel what?" Wataru asked idly, "A time-paradox?"

"No," Nagi shook her head, "time-paradoxes feel more like…" she gestured vaguely, "stuff, you know?"

Wataru nodded, deciding it would simply be easier to indulge Nagi. "Yeah, sure. Of course they do."

Nagi grinned, glad that Wataru seemed to understand what she was saying. "Yeah, but this? This feels more like… junk. Do you get what I'm trying to say? It's like a few dozen readers cried out in joy, and were then silenced."

Wataru sighed. "Do you have a point? I'd like to get back to committing genocide against koopa-kind some time today. Those goombas aren't going to stomp themselves, after all.

"Yes!" Nagi snapped indignantly, "of course I have a point, dickless!"

"… dickless?"

"Sh-shaddup!" Nagi growled indignantly. "I can't help it that Sai's insults are so brilliant…" she muttered.

"Jeez, Nagi, are _trying_ to break causality, here?"

"No! I'm trying to tell you that it feels like something big!"

"Huh? What feels like what?"

"Plot," Nagi explained simply.

"… that doesn't answer a damned thing!"

* * *

Klaus looked at Dire Rat blankly. "… I know I should have expected this, but it is still a shock to actually hear those words…" he muttered to himself while nervously adjusting his glasses. "Anyways," he spoke up, " what proof do we have that you will not simply take the stone and run?"

"The same proof that you won't simply attack me and take the stone back. You first-class butlers with your high-class pedigrees…" Dire Rat smirked, "You are all too damn honorable for your own good."

"And you?" Klaus inquired with raised eyebrow.

"I give my word as a ninja."

"But… you are an assa–" Klaus started, only to be interrupted by Hayate.

"For milady!" he declared resolutely. "BANZAI!" With a running leap, Hayate kicked Dire Rat's in the face, causing the assassin to drop to the floor.

"Ow! That hurt, you bastard!" Dire Rat swore as he rolled around on the ground, holding his face in agony. "What the hell was that for?-!"

"As a butler of the Sanzen'in family, it is my duty to protect milady from any and all threats. Besides," Hayate chuckled evilly, "_my_ ancestors were scum, so my only honor comes from doing my job and doing it well."

Dire Rat gulped. "So… You aren't Stupid Good?"

"Not by a long shot."

"Crap."

* * *

_Omake: Saki and Sake Don't Mix_

Maria watched Saki as she once more fled at the sight of Hayate. It was starting to get on Maria's nerves. "Ayasaki-kun… What happened between you and Saki?"

At this, Hayate blushed and looked intently at the floor, as though it was streaming hi-def episodes of _Ah My Goddess_. "N-nothing…" he muttered, tracing circles in the carpet with his toes.

"Uh-huh," Maria said skeptically.

Hayate flinched under Maria's piercing stare. "Okay!" he confessed, "Something _did_ happen, but I didn't mean to do it…" he trailed off as he began relating the story to Maria.

* * *

A truck drove slowly past the front of Tachibana Rental. "Bamboo! Get your bamboo! We got a sale on bamboo, here!" declared the driver over the speakers, "Cheap bamboo courtesy of the Neighborhood Watch Committee!"

In another part of town, Wataru Tachibana felt sudden urge to shout: "Damn you, Neighborhood Watch Committee!"

So he did. "Damn you, Neighborhood Watch Committee!"

* * *

"… And that's what happened," Hayate finished.

Maria's was a radiant shade of scarlet. "… wow. So she…?"

"Yes."

"… and you…?"

"Yes. With the clown."

"… and the three sumo wrestlers?"

Hayate nodded in the affirmative. "Ichirō, Jirō, and Bob with the watering hose."

"… I'll be in my bunk."

* * *

1: These are technical terms for two types of commentary. 'Intradiegetic' is also known as 'Watsonian' or 'in-universe'; an example of this would be answering "Because he sees her as a child, not a girl," to the question "Why doesn't Hayate reciprocate Nagi's affections?". 'Extradiegetic' is also known as 'Doylist' or 'out-of-universe'; an example of this would be answering "Because Kishimoto has stated that he doesn't want a Romantic Plot Tumor to take over the story," to the question "Why don't Naruto and Sakura/Hinata/whoever hook up?".

**A/N: Sorry the update took so long. Again. I tend to write numerous things at the same time, and my inspiration tends to come in bursts, so it can take me forever to get anything done at times. Also, I have a bad habit of archive bingeing on manga and webcomics, which really eats up my time. I only managed to pull myself away from _PvP online_, _Ah My Goddess_, and various fanfics (and the occasional hentai doujin) long enough to append an omake and and author's note to the chapter. **

**Even as I type this, I have at least nineteen (O.O !-?) tabs open in my browser and at least five other files open in Open Office. I swear to God, I am ADHD incarnate. **

**Well, I'll _try_ not to take as long with the next chapter, but I can't making any promises.**

**TTFN and R&R!**

* * *

**.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

… **A: Squirrel Girl.**


	4. The End of an Arc

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A _Hayate the Combat Butler_ fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: This chapter seems to have the highest dialogue to word ratio since the first , after (finally) reading past the Golden Week arc, I can safely say that this fanfic is officially separate from canon, in the sense that it diverges from the manga sometime around the end of the group's stay in Greece. **

**While on the subject of the manga, I must say that I, for one, am glad that it's pretty much back to normal levels of silliness with just a sprinkling of drama. **

**Also, I feel it's only safe to warn you that the first part of this chapter contains instances of strong swearing that may be inappropriate for younger readers. It's only a handful of times, but still, it's better safe than sorry.**

* * *

**Chapter Four:**

**The End of an Arc**

"For milady!" Hayate shouted as he swiftly struck against his foe, even managing to land the first blow.

"Oof!" Dire Rat grunted as he took a punch to the gut from Hayate, who followed up with another punch then a roundhouse kick to the face. Dire Rat staggered. As always, he was all but worthless in a head-to-head confrontation. He grimaced as he felt his legs truckle, giving way to a sweeping low kick from Hayate.

Dire Rat fell to his knees. Still, unwilling to give up, he rolled to the side and sprung back up in spite of the pain in his legs. Easily getting behind Hayate, Dire Rat made to shove the butler to ground. This was thwarted by Hayate grabbing the assassin's arms and flipping Dire Rat, slamming him into the ground.

Calmly, Hayate stepped back and surveyed the brutalized assassin. "Hand over the antidote," he demanded firmly. After a minute passed with no response, he stepped towards his fallen foe and reiterated his statement. He stopped in surprise when Dire Rat snarled and stood.

The assassin swayed uneasily on his feet, but his eyes burned with a furious light "Never… you bastard!" Dire Rat rasped out before producing a _kattari_ from his sleeve and madly charging at Hayate. As he ran, he produced a second one with a snarl.

Hayate sidestepped and kicked Dire Rat in the back as he passed, knocking the man down. "Give up," Hayate growled. His eye's were hidden in shadow, only visible for the cruel light shining in them. "I do not intend to show you any mercy, should you insist on continuing this farce."

"Mercy…?" Dire Rat growled at Hayate. "Don't patronize me, you candy-assed sonuvabitch. I am the goddamn Dire Rat… I've been in this business since before you were born. I've killed more people than you'll ever meet. I am the motherfucking Dire Rat, and I don't need no mercy from some goddamn brat!" Dire Rat jumped up in an attempt to skewer Hayate, only to be incapacitated by several hundred volts coursing through his body. "ARGH!" he shrieked while convulsing uncontrollably on the floor.

Standing behind the assassin's twitching form was Klaus holding something the general size and shape of an electric razor. "Any butler worth his salt knows to carry a TASER on his person at all times," he explained to the astonished Hayate.

Hayate looked at Klaus as if the head butler had just grown a second head. "Why did say taser in all capital letters?"

Klaus adjusted his glasses. "Because TASER is an acronym," he explained as if to a slow child.

"An acronym?" parroted Hayate.

"Yes, it stands for _Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle_," Klaus declared, eager to show off his knowledge of popular culture.

Hayate scratched his head confusedly. "… Who?"

Klaus tsk'ed at Hayate and shook his head in disappointment. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Are you truly so poorly read? Thomas A. Swift, better know as Tom Swift, was the main character of a series of American science fiction novels targeted towards boys your age written from nineteen-ten to nineteen-forty. I, myself, fondly remember whiling away lazy summer days reading his adventures during breaks, when I was a lad your age…" Klaus sighed nostalgically, lost in some flashback or another.

Hayate laughed nervously, fearful that Klaus would go on a spiel about how everything had been better in the old days (or something like that), before turning to look at Dire Rat, who was still lying on the floor and groaning in agony. Hayate sweat-dropped. _'Maybe we overdid it...'_

Suddenly, Dire Rat hissed and hopped back onto his feet _again_. "The stone…" Dire Rat as he tried to push himself off the ground. "The stone… I need the King's Stone… Retirement…" He grunted forcefully then stood up again, roaring as he brandished his kattaris. "I need that stone. That bounty…! For retirement!" he declared before once more recklessly charging the blue-haired butler.

_'… or maybe not,'_ Hayate thought with a sigh. Easily sidestepping the berserk assassin's desperate swings, Hayate calmly planted his foot into Dire Rat's face without even leaving the ground. "I thought this was over. What point was there to all this if the assassination attempts don't stop…? Why did milady put my happiness before her own well-being? What use is a broken stone to you people?-!" Hayate exclaimed before jumping up just enough to put all his weight onto the foot in Dire Rat's face, causing the assassin to lose balance and fall on his back.

"Mmphrmfrl?" Dire Rat mumbled incomprehensibly, the foot in his face preventing him from articulating words.

Hayate was silent for a moment before the realization dawned on him. "Oh, sorry," he apologized, sheepishly scratching the back of his head, his prior hostility dissipating into his default state of cheerfully polite. He removed his foot from Dire Rat's face..

After all, he wouldn't be able to get any answers out of Dire Rat if the assassin couldn't speak. "Now, what were you saying?"

Dire Rat spat out a tooth and a bit of blood before speaking. "I was saying: 'What did you say?'."

"I asked you what you said."

"I know, I said: 'What did you say?'."

"Are you trying to confuse me? I'm not going to humor you. Just answer my question."

"'What did you say?'! Are your ears full of wax, boy?"

"Third base!" Klaus interjected with a chortle.

Hayate looked at Klaus blankly while Dire Rat slapped himself in the forehead.

"Good Lord, is this what I've been reduced to? Doing half-ass ripoffs of Laurel and Hardy bits with some teenager?"

"… who?" Hayate asked confusedly.

Dire Rat groaned. "No. I draw the line at running gags! I don't have to take this," he grumbled, "I used to _be_ somebody. Best damn assassin this side of Azrael… All I want is an early retirement! Hell, I'll even join a monastery, if You'll just get me away from this madness!" he begged with clasped hands and skyward gaze.

To the the surprise of everyone (including Dire Rat), the morose killer for hire actually received an answer.

"Very well then, Dire Rat, I shall reward your faithfulness and grant you the release you so desire. I only ask one favor of you in return: finish the chapter," said Narrio Wakamator, his voice coming from nowhere and everywhere.

"… God…?" Dire Rat wondered, awestruck and slightly confused.

"No, my child. I am simply the Narrator," clarified Narrio.

"… do I still get to leave at the end of this chapter?"

"Yes," answered the Narrator, "For it is written in the Script that you shall depart after this chapter. Possibly forever."

"… and I'll be free of this madhouse?"

"Yes."

Dire Rat grinned. "Well, heck! I'll do it, then. I'll get to the end of this chapter so hard it won't know what to think!"

* * *

"Are we there yet, Nagi?"

"Almost. We should be able get there just in time for our scene."

Nagi and Wataru were wandering through the halls of Nagi's mansion. And I do mean the halls, as those seemed to comprise well over seventy percent of this part of the mansion.

"Darnit! We made a wrong turn!" Nagi cursed, turning her map around in her hands, "Whose bright idea was it to have this part of the mansion designed by George Trevor?-! I swear, it's like this compound is nothing but locked doors, secret passages, and hallways!"

Wataru cocked his head. "George Trevor… That architect from New York? Huh… I guess this part of the mansion must be newer than the others."

"Yeah, that old fart Mikado commissioned this compound in the late fifties, around the time he inherited the estate. He'd originally intended it to be his living quarters, but he got so fed up with collecting seven ivory emblems every time he had to use the bathroom that he fired the architect and sold his contract to one 'Ozwell E. Spencer'."

"The guy who runs that one pharmaceutical corporation?"

"Yeah, that's the one!"

"Well, okay, so that explains the layout. But what's with all these zombies?" Wataru inquired as he bludgeoned another undead dog to… re-death?

"I have _no_ idea," Nagi admitted, ducking as yet another zombie crashed/jumped through yet another (in-)conveniently placed window.

* * *

Dire Rat stared blankly at Hayate, refusing to accept what he had just heard. "… Surely, you jest. The stone? Broken? O-of course not. You _must_ be joking…"

Hayate shook his head, and he said cheerfully, "No, I'm sorry, but Lady Nagi broke it."

A look of guilt crossed Hayate's face, but it went unnoticed by the catatonic Dire Rat.

_ 'Tarerid… A. T. Drier…'_ whispered a voice in the assassin's head, _'Ch__ō__nezumi, La Rata de la __Plaga, __Monsteragtige Muis, __Julmade Näriliste, An Francach go Cnàmhach ar Magairlí_(**1**)_, That Effing Guy…__' _it rambled incomprehensibly, chanting his various titles. _'It's too late, she figured it out… that loop-hole… Though, I suppose it's to be expected from the famed prodigy, Nagi Sanzen'in.'_ Dire Rat sighed resignedly. "Oh well, I suppose that's what I get for trying to escape."

He then burst into tears.

Hayate, seeing the assassin looking so pathetic, felt pity well up in his heart unbidden. Before he knew what he was doing, Hayate was patting Dire Rat on the back and telling him that everything would be alright, and that he was just down on his luck, was all.

Klaus cleared his throat. "Ahem, I would hate to interrupt you two, but I do feel that it would be prudent to claim the antidote and cure Maria-san."

Hayate's eyes widened. "That's right! I'd forgotten!"

Maria, Klaus, and Saki sweat-dropped.

_'He forgot…' _

_ 'Unbelievable! Unacceptable! How can he call himself a butler of the Sanzen'in family when he is so scatter-brained?-!' _

_ 'I can't believe he could forget something so important. He may be impressive physically, but he is still a ditz… Why do I suddenly feel like a hypocrite?' _

Hayate grabbed Dire Rat by the shoulders and shook him. "Where is the bomb– I mean, the antidote?-!" Hayate demanded.

"Ow!' Dire Rat yelped, "Quit it! There is no antidote– "

"What!-?" Hayate hissed, his eyes flashing with a foreboding light as he slammed the assassin to the ground.

"Owowow! Stop hurting me and let me finish my sentence!" Dire Rat pleaded, "There isn't an antidote because there isn't a poison!"

"… what."

"On the blade: it was just Cool-Ade!" Dire Rat explained hastily, "There was never any poison. I was just a mind trick! She thought it was poison, so she fell!"

Saki scratched her head. "Wait, so you're saying that your entire gambit rested on the assumption that Maria was so genre-savvy that she would automatically assume the substance she saw on your knife was poison? And that her assumption would be so powerful as to make her feel like she was poisoned? And that we just give you the King's Stone on the off-chance that you would happen to have an antidote on your person, as opposed to doing the smart thing by beating you up and rushing Maria to a hospital? And that we wouldn't try taking the stone back after getting the antidote?"

Dire Rat chuckled sheepishly. "Well, when you put it like that..."

"Absolutely diabolical!" Saki declared, slamming her fist into her open palm, which caused everyone else in the room to face-fault.

It was at that point that Nagi and Wataru walked into the room. Seeing everyone lying face-first on the ground, Nagi threw a fit.

"What the heck?-!" Nagi freaked out, "Why is everyone lying on the ground?-! Is there some kind of virus in the air making you all do this?-! What the heck! Are you guys gonna turn into zombies or something? That's not fair! Hayate, Maria, Klaus, guy I've never met before–"

Wataru stared at Nagi in disbelief. Had she already forgotten the man who had tried to kill her not even two hours ago?

"– if you guys turn into zombies, who'll do my laundry or make my bed or cook me dinner or lunch or breakfast or draw my baths or fold my clothes or go on adventures with me or try to make me stop being a shut-in or read my manga or lose to me in video-games or, or, or, what the heck?-!-?-!" Nagi stomped her foot on the ground. "Hey you, ugly!" she shouted, pointing at Dire Rat.

Dire Rat was silent. '_No._ _No way. If I answer to that, you'll always call me ugly. I wasn't born yesterday, kid.'_

Nagi then jumped on top of Dire Rat and started stomping on his back. "What the heck! Hey, stupid, listen up! I'm talking to _yoooouuuu_!"

_'… the hell is this kid on?'_ Dire Rat wondered before sighing and sitting up, causing Nagi to fall off his back. "What? What do you want?"

Nagi kicked Dire Rat before standing up and pointing between the man's eyes. "What the heck! You're an assassin, right?"

Dire Rat blinked, unsure what to say. "Uhh, yeah, I guess. … And it's rude to point,"he added, "so get your finger out of my face."

Nagi started poking his forehead. "I dun wanna," she said childishly, "You're my pet assassin. I've always wanted one," she chirped, her eyes slightly out of focus.

Dire Rat's eyes widened. He had seen that kind of thing before. The look on her face was something he'd encountered many times in his line of work – far too many times. He now knew, or at least had an idea of, why this girl was acting so strangely.

Part of Dire Rat knew that Nagi Sanzen'in was clearly not in her right mind, but another part of him realized that he could use the girl's impaired judgment to his advantage. If she put him on a payroll, he would be able to essentially retire – and at a mere thirty-one years old, too! Most of his colleagues would never have a chance like this. For most assassins, retirement was a bullet to the back of the head after one too many failed missions.

Seeing that this could very well be the way out that he had been looking for, Dire Rat smiled. "Okay, miss. I don't see why not," he said cheerfully as shook the high child's hands.

Decades later, when looking back on his life, Dire Rat would look back on this as the moment his life went insane.

"Pardon me for saying this, Lady Nagi," interjected Maria, "but I really don't think it's a good idea to keep a hired-killer as a pet."

"Don't worry, I'll feed him and water him and clean out his litter box. Just like I do with Tama and Shiranui!"

"… but you don't do any of those things," pointed out Maria.

Nagi grinned. "Exactly!"

Maria sighed. So much for Nagi being more responsible.

Dire Rat stepped up to Maria, and whispered into her ear, earning himself a slap for it afterward. "By the way, you should probably do something about all that caffeine in her system, though she does seem to be calming down, now…"

Dire Rat then walked away, gently nursing a vibrant crimson palm mark on his cheek. "And besides, how was _I_ supposed to know she's underage? And not into guys like me? And that she doesn't appreciate that kind of language? Sheesh…" he grumbled with a wince.

"Hey, you!" Nagi once again addressed Dire Rat, who reluctantly went in to listen to what she had to say.

"I wonder what's with milady?" Hayate wondered, hoping she was okay.

"Yes, she _is_ acting rather strange, isn't she?" Saki agreed, before being shoved onto Hayate by a bored Wataru.

"Ah! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Hayate squeaked reflexively as he felt two certain soft parts of Saki's anatomy press against his arm as he barely avoided taking a fall.

"How could you betray me, sir?-!" Saki cried the second she had gotten herself off of Hayate. "Why did you do this?"

"Because this chapter wasn't meeting the harem comedy antics quota," Wataru explained to the weepy Saki.

"Ah, I see… wait, did you say _harem_ comedy antics? But, these antics have been centered around…" Saki trailed off, too fearful of the apparent conclusion to this train of thought.

"Yes," Wataru sighed, "though from what I understand, you're mostly just being used for this because your squeamish reactions toward implications of intimacy with Ayasaki are considered by the author to be more humorous than Nagi's _tsundere_ mood swings or Maria's understanding nature with passive-aggressive undertones. The author does not seem to count you as part of Hayate's harem… I think he said something about 'wanting to please her master'…" The expression on Wataru's face turned serious, "Saki…"

Saki gulped. She did not like the tone in her master's voice. "Y-yes, sir?"

"Are you a submissive(**2**)?"

Saki face-faulted. "And how, good sir, do you know about that sort of thing?-!"

"How do you?" Wataru countered.

Saki was flustered. "I-I am an adult! What I do in my free time is my own business!"

"… wow. I didn't actually expect that kind of answer," Wataru admitted, mouth agape.

"… Wa-wait, sir! That came out wrong!"

"_Sure_ it did," Wataru smirked, "Don't think I haven't been keeping track of the sites you visit on your own free time."

Saki narrowed her eyes. "You must be bluffing, because I never visit such sites," she said confidently.

"Really? Because I'm pretty sure that the key-logging software I installed on your laptop has proof to the contrary…"

Saki whimpered. "Oh, please, sir! I only ask that you do as I say, not as I do!" she begged him. "I promised that I would raise you into a fine young gentleman, and gentlemen do not look at those kinds of things!"

"… What about gentlemen's clubs(**3**)?"

"That's a misnomer! A misnomer!" Saki exclaimed frantically.

Wataru sighed, then he grimaced. It seemed like he would need to temporarily swallow his pride if he wanted Saki to calm down. "Fine, fine," he grumbled with his toes crossed, "I promise not to look at that kind of stuff, okay?"

Saki smiled as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "I know that, with your weak male willpower, you won't be able to actually keep your promise, but it's still nice to hear you say that!" she declared as she threw her arms around her master and drew him into a tight hug.

"If I may speak for a moment, if you were a guy, you'd probably already be in jail for th–OOF!" Wataru grunted as he hit the floor. "Ow! What the heck? What was that for?" Saki had suddenly dropped him for no apparent reason, and she was now making a point to ignore him.

Maria sighed. "Why does it seem like I'm the only one around here who isn't some sort of pervert of potential sex offender?"

"I don't get it. Did I do something wrong?" Wataru wondered, somewhat worried at Saki's seemingly random mood-swings.

While Wataru was trying to figure out why Saki was mad at him, Maria was scolding Klaus for leaving his coffee out where Nagi could get into it.

"I-I'm sorry!" Klaus sputtered, fearful of the maid's wrath, "I only meant to set it down for a moment while I filled out some forms, but time got away from me and I forgot about it!"

Maria scowled, annoyance evident in her stare, "… Why did you have to leave it in the kitchen to do paperwork? It's not like you can't drink it while doing that," she said politely, her words piercing Klaus like arrows.

Klaus cleared his throat nervously. "… I didn't think of that."

Maria sighed. _'How can the head-butler be so careless…?' _

* * *

_Meanwhile, in a parallel universe!_

* * *

Rodriguez, the younger-than-he-looks brown-haired head-butler of the Ayasaki family, cleared his throat nervously. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure how Master Hayate got into my coffee," he admitted sheepishly as a hyperactive thirteen year-old boy with light-blue hair raced past, followed by a panting, sixteen year-old blonde girl with twin-pigtails.

The gray-haired, bespectacled maid Olga sighed. _'How can the head-butler be so careless…?'_

* * *

_Back in the home universe of our heroes!_

* * *

"… and that's your mission," Nagi finished groggily.

Dire Rat nodded his head. "Of course, milady," he replied with a forced smile. She actually had a target for him… _'Damnit! Everytime I think I've managed to escape this business alive, I get pulled right back in. They keep dragging me back!'_ "I will be certain to complete this mission to your satisfaction."

With that, Dire Rat threw down a smoke bomb, filling the room with smoke. When it cleared, he was gone.

"Huh," Wataru muttered, "I honestly expected him to forget to leave, so that he would be still be standing there when smoke cleared, you know?"

"Yes," admitted Saki, "I'm surprised we actually didn't do that gag…"

"Gotcha," Wataru said with a grin. "You're talking to me again."

Saki giggled despite herself, "Oh, sir…" she said with a smile, "I just can't stay angry at that adorable face!" she squealed while pinching Wataru's cheek.

Wataru's expression temporarily reverted to his customary scowl, before being broken up by a smile. _'Well, at least that's over with…' _he thought in relief, _'maybe now things will return to normal…'_

Suddenly, a hatch on the floor opened up, revealing a hole that seemed to have appeared solely for the sake of the plot… a _plot hole_, if you will.

Out from the hole popped a sheepish Dire Rat. "Sorry, I seem to have forgotten my hat," he said, before grabbing a hat off of the floor. He then hopped back into the hole closing the hatch behind him and causing any trace of the 'trapdoor that should not have been' to vanish.

"… like the _Mary Poppins_ of assassins…" mumbled a nonplussed Klaus.

"… Hayate…" Nagi said flatly, "he didn't have a hat when he came here, did he."

"No, milady, not that I'm aware of."

"Klaus, that was our hat, wasn't it."

"… but then, who's Dick van Dyke?" Klaus mumbled to himself, temporarily catatonic.

"… yes, I thought so," Nagi sighed. "Maria, how much was that hat worth?"

"I'm not sure, but if I had to estimate, I would have to say about fifty-one thousand two hundred eighty-six yen. Give or take a few hundred, depending on the going rate, of course."

"Of course," Nagi sighed. "Okay, screw this, I'm going to bed."

"But it's not even four o'clock, yet," said Hayate.

Nagi ignored him. "If anyone needs me, tell 'em to buzz off," she informed her servants, "I need a nap, and I have a killer head-ache," she grumbled, massaging her temples as she did so.

* * *

Meanwhile, in an undisclosed location, Ayumu Nishizawa was laughing maniacally while watching something on a monitor.

* * *

(**4**)_Omake: __إصبع القدم من الإبل _

Fumi Hibino and Sharna Alamgir were riding a camel through Iraq.

… or they were trying to, at least, but since the country was kind of in the middle of a war, it was more than a little difficult.

"Aww!" Fumi, dressed in local garb at the behest of her tour guide, exclaimed sadly as she flailed her arms, "Why won't you let us through?-!" she asked in Japanese.

The coalition soldier she was speaking with, as a Canadian born and raised in Quebec, knew both French fluently and could converse in English well enough, but he had only a passing acquaintance with the Japanese language.

"_Excuse me sir_," Sharna said politely in Arabic, "_but my friend wants to know why you won't let us go through._"

The translator perked up at the sound of someone speaking a language he could translate, translated for his partner what Sharna had just said.

"_You are kidding me, right?_" the first soldier said incredulously in French, "_I mean, I've heard stories about Japanese tourists before, but… but this is just ridiculous! Surely they must realize that it's a war-zone in there!_"

The translator shrugged, just as baffled as his comrade. "_Hell if I know,_" he replied to his partner, "_They could be terrorists, or something, I suppose._"

"_… Japanese schoolgirl terrorists? That's absurd!_" the first soldier scoffed.

"_Hey! It could happen…_"

"_Ah!_"Sharna and Fumi's tour guide –a bent, wizened old Iraqi with a full, gray beard and a well-wrinkled brow– interjected in fluid Turkmen, "_Excuse me, good sirs, could you please explain to these two that this city is presently too dangerous for sightseeing? They will not listen to anything I have to say on this, but surely they would heed such obvious authorities on the subject as yourselves!_"

The first soldier looked to his partner. After a moment, the translator managed to figure out what the old man had said, and he explained it to his partner. "_He wants us to scare these girls straight, basically,_" he explained in English for no other reason than to see the frustrated look on his partners face as he puzzled over the meaning of that sentence.

As a _Québécois francophones_, or French-speaking Quebecker, the first soldier, while acquainted with English, was mostly only fluent enough in it to carry out his CO's orders. Thus, it was unsurprising, in hindsight, that he misunderstood what the second soldier said. "_I see…_" he muttered, reserving a glare for the confused tour guide. "_but why should we do what he said? After all, lesbians are kind of hot…_" he trailed off, lost in his own little fantasy.

"_Eh…? No, no, no, you idiot! I mean he wants us to convince those girls that the city isn't safe, since it's a war-zone and all!_" the translator clarified in French.

"_Ohhhh…_ _'scare them straight' as in…_" the first soldier's eyes widened in understanding. "_I get it, now. That makes much more sense!_"

Fumi smiled vacantly as she watched the proceedings, completely clueless as to what they were talking about. "I hope we can visit the city sometime soon," she chirped, "I can't wait to get some souvenirs from this year's Golden Week!"

"Golden Week?" said Sharna, "That ended a few days ago."

"… eh?" Fumi stared blankly at her friend, sheer shock preventing her from processing what the British-born(**5**) girl was saying.

"Yes," Sharna nodded. "In fact, I'm pretty sure school just started again today.

"… school…?" Fumi was in shock. So much for her hopes of a perfect attendance record. "Omigosh!" she exclaimed, "We don't have any time to waste here! We've gotta get back!" grabbing Sharna's wrist, Fumi dragged her compliant friend back onto the camel. "_BAI BAI, S__Ā!_" she exclaimed in bad Engrish as she waved farewell to the soldiers and the tour guide.

"_… holy God, that girl was crazy…_" the first soldier mumbled to a nod of agreement from his flabbergasted partner as the elderly tour guide chased after the girls.

"_Come back with my camel!_" the old man shouted as the Fumi Hibino and Sharna Alamgir rode off into the sunset.

* * *

(1): These are (mostly) different titles Dire Rat has in various languages. I used dictionary dot com's translator to get them (except for the first, second, and last ones), so the grammar may not be perfect. The languages and meanings, in order, are: **Japanese – Super Mouse**, _Spanish – The Rat of the Plague_, **Afrikaans – Monstrous Mouse**, _Estonian – Cruel Rodent_, and **Irish – Rat that Chews on Testicles**.

(2): 'Submissive' is here referring to the "bottom half" of the standard S&M couple. I have no idea if this is what they're actually called in real life, but for the sake of the story, let's assume they are.

(3): 'Gentlemen's club' is a polite euphemism for 'strip club'. Just in case someone reading this isn't actually aware of what it means.

(4): The title of this omake is in Arabic, once more courtesy of dictionary dot com's translator. It (should) mean 'Toe of camel'.

(5): This is just a little fanon supposition of mine made primarily for giving Sharna slightly more background than just being Fumi's friend. My train of thought for this was basically that from her appearance and name, Sharna would appear to be of Indian descent. However, as this is a very obvious conclusion to make, I decided to take it one step further and decide that Sharna is British. Why? Because England has a large number of citizens of Indian descent (such a large number, in fact, that the national dish is on the verge of being curry, as opposed to the long-standing favorite of fish and chips), that's why. Just another insight into my overly-convoluted thought-process, I guess.

**A/N: Well, as the chapter says, this is the end of the Assassin Arc. Next chapter, we'll take a look at how Nishizawa's day went, and after that will be the start of the next arc, involving a few familiar faces paying the Sanzen'in mansion a visit. Haha! And in the story, this is still only the second day… **

**As I have said elsewhere, I am currently selling some of old games on eBay to make a little money. If you feel like it, my handle over there is EvilFuzzy912.**

**TTFN and R&R!**

**.**

**.**

**.  
**

**P.S.: I just got_ Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions _in the mail the other day, and I'm expecting _Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness _to arrive any day now. Between this, and the prospective length of the next chapter (which covers Ayumu Nishizawa's very busy day, as well as putting some of the interludes in the past one or two chapters into context), you might not see the next update on this chapter for a bit. **

… **Then again, considering that so far I have a relatively steady, if not exactly fast, average update rate of one chapter per month for this story, the wait probably won't really be anything new, in that regard. Just felt like giving y'all a heads up, I reckon.**


	5. Intermission I

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**Intermission**

* * *

Hello, everyone; let me take a moment to tell you a little bit about my computer. In a sense, it's a hand-me-down laptop. I got it from my _younger_ brother after he got a brand-new laptop courtesy of his online school (after he barely managed to avoid flunking high school the previous year…).

It's a CF-48 Panasonic Toughbook. Now, I'll admit that I don't know that much about computers, but I _do_ know that what I got was not, by any meter, a very good computer. Its screen is touchy, blacking out if you open it at anything faster than a snail's pace. Its internal fan is all but useless, serving only to deafen the user as the laptop burns their lap. It sometimes fails to hibernate properly, getting stuck in a sort of limbo between on and off where you can hear it running and feel it overheating, but you can't see or do anything on it, and you can't make it hibernate, and you cannot turn it off except by intentionally overheating it so that the fail-safe kicks in and shuts it down or by unplugging it and letting the battery go dead. Incidentally, it also has a bad battery, and it can't easily handle anything much harder on the CPU than the Windows 7 paint application (which has actually _frozen _my computer when used at the same time as Open Office Writer and/or Internet Explorer).

I have had this laptop for less than a year, and it is already nearly through with its second new adaptor. A power cord which, incidentally, I'm not even sure is actually _for_ this model, but I'll get back to that later. I recently ordered a replacement power-cord and adaptor for my laptop on eBay. After a few days, I received the cord and adaptor in the mail, and I got around to using it. However, when I went to plug the cord into my power-strip (i.e. surge protector, as they are also called) I noticed a spark. At first, I simply wrote this off as unimportant and a fluke. The second time I plugged it in, I again saw a spark. This time I was marginally more concerned, but I still ignored it, happy just to have a working adaptor.

On my third day of using the adaptor, I noticed that the part which plugged into my laptop was strangely hot – noticeably hotter than the previous one had ever gotten. I was somewhat perplexed, but I ignored it – right up until it stopped working altogether. Annoyed and bemused, I unplugged the cord from my laptop.

That's when I saw the smoke. Specifically, there was a bit of clear smoke (or maybe steam?-?-?) that came out right when I unplugged the cord from my laptop. I ended up having to send the adaptor back so the company could either fix it or send a replacement, which meant a couple of weeks of not being able to use my computer. Then, when I got the replacement adaptor, I used it for a bit before noticing that I was once again (or rather, was _still_) having power supply issues. Fed up, I sent the adaptor and my laptop to a friend to have him look at it. He informed that the problem was in fact a broken part in the computer's internal power supply. Unfortunately, he did not have the tools to fix that, and he said that it's unlikely that replacement parts compatible with computers of the model I own. Of course, I didn't (and still don't) have the kind of money needed to get the part serviced, and _certainly_ not enough to buy a new laptop, which is a big part of why it is taking me so long to update.

With that said, I _am_ working on the next real chapter, but I have reached a slight roadblock: I cannot seem to find the name of a certain character who will be playing a small role in the story. So, if any of you guys happen to know the name of that one recurring scarred Yakuza guy who appeared as recently as Chapter 269, please tell me what it is. I'd look for it myself, but I'm kind of busy, what with family and trying to find a job and working on the next chapter the best that I can.

**Thank you, R&R, and TTFN!  
**


	6. I Hate when Characters in Manga are Neve

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: _Allez oup_, everyone, here it comes! Another chapter for the underdog, _Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!_  
**

* * *

**Chapter Five:**

**I Hate when Characters in Manga are Never Given Names**

Nagi ignored him. "If anyone needs me, tell 'em to buzz off," she informed her servants, "I need a nap, and I have a killer head-ache," she grumbled, massaging her temples as she did so.

* * *

Meanwhile, in an undisclosed location, Ayumu Nishizawa was laughing maniacally while watching something on a monitor.

* * *

.rotinom a no gnihtemos gnihctaw elihw yllacainam gnihgual saw awazihsiN umuyA, noitacol desolcsidnu na ni, elihwnaeM

.

.

.nalp that rof hcum oS .dehcnilf sualK

.

.

"!sroodni yats ot hsiw ylurt dluow sluos devarped yletulosba tsom eht tub enon that napaJ ni gninrom raelc dna lufituaeb yltcefrep a hcus si ti ,deednI" ,rogiv etanoissap lausu sih htiw rotamakaW oirraN dias ",tcefrep ylbatupsidni yletulosba si erutarepmet eht dna ,raelc si yks ehT .nus gnisir eht fo dnal eht ,napaJ ni gninrom lufituaeb a si tI" .llaW htruoF eht dnoyeB morf emac eciov dedoolb-toh dna gnillepmoc ylhcir a – sdnah namuh fo krow yna yb delellarapnu ytuaeb etulosba fo erutcip eht – daehrevo esor nus eht sA

* * *

The warm rays of the morning sun touched upon the Sanzen'in estate – a sprawling luxurious mansion built in the late nineteenth century using techniques imported from all the way over in Europe. The mansion was originally commissioned by the grandfather of Nagi's grandfather (or Nagi's great-great-grandfather), Tarō Sanzen'in, a jack-of-all-trades and ruthless businessman who had quickly adopted the capitalist ideals of the industrialized West during the Meiji Restoration Period, and who made the beginnings of the vast Sanzen'in fortune by becoming one of the first men in Japan to build a factory overseas (a feat which he had accomplished by blackmailing a particularly affluent American oil baron). He had been incredibly successful in life, one of the few great tycoons to truly start with nothing, and the wealth of the Sanzen'in family had only grown since then. Indeed, this complex which covered numerous acres of land (an extremely valuable commodity in the densely-populated nation of Japan) was absolutely _modest _in comparison to some of the other properties in the possession of the impossibly affluent Sanzen'in family and their retainers.

As the sun rose overhead – a picture of absolute beauty unparalleled by any work of human hands – a richly compelling and hot-blooded voice came from Beyond the Fourth Wall. "It is a beautiful morning in Japan, the land of the rising sun. The sky is clear, and the temperature is absolutely indisputably perfect," said Narrio Wakamator with his usual passionate vigor, "Indeed, it is such a perfectly beautiful and clear morning in Japan that none but the most absolutely depraved souls would truly wish to stay indoors!"

Meanwhile in another, less affluent, part of town, the perfectly bland and ordinary low-rent apartment complex –wherein was located the perfectly bland and ordinary abode of the perfectly bland and ordinary Nishizawa clan who were a perfectly bland and ordinary example of a perfectly bland and ordinary nuclear family– was slowly but surely coming alive as various residents awoke and began to prepare to leave for work or school. However, in the room of one Ayumu Nishizawa which was within the living quarters inhabited by the Nishizawa clan, this was not the case.

"Tee-hee~… " the teenaged Nishizawa daughter giggled sleepily as she rolled onto her side, becoming further entangled in her blanket as she did so, "Don't touch me there… snerk… that tickles, Hayate… mergle…" she drooled onto her pillow as her blush deepened. Ayumu was sleeping peacefully in bed, with pleasant dreams of naughtiness dancing through her head. Her alarm clock was bleating futilely in an attempt to awaken its sleeping mistress.

BEEP! BEEP!

BEEP! BEEP!

BEE–THUNK! Went the clock, Nishizawa sleepily slamming her palm on the snooze button. "…Ngh… five more minutes..." she grumbled as she slipped back into the blissful world of dreams.

The clock read quarter after seven.

* * *

The air reverberated with the roar of the elegant commercial jet's powerful engines as it touched down on the landing strip. The ivory behemoth shuddered slightly as its tires skipped and skidded along the surface, until eventually slowed to a standstill and the whining of the jet engines faded as they shut down.

_"Here we are,_" the baritone-voiced pilot suavely announced over the intercom in a specific South American dialect of Spanish, possibly Venezuelan, or something similar, "_Costa Rica – the Rich Coast._"

"Wow!" exclaimed a bespectacled young boy looking out his window at the tarmac, "It's beautiful!"

"Geez, Kazuki, don't get overstimulated," a purple-haired girl next to him teased, "We haven't even gotten off the plane yet."

Kazuki Nishizawa blushed indignantly. "Sh-shut up, sis," he grumbled, "I can't help it if the view is so great..."

"What view?" his sister inquired, "We're still in the airport – heck, we haven't even gotten off the plane yet. There's nothing to see here."

"Nuh-uh!" Kazuki rebutted, "They have an animatronic _T. rex_(1)!"

Ayumu stared at her brother. "… Animatronic… _T. rex_…?"

"Yeah!" Kazuki nodded emphatically, "It's on the tarmac and everything. See for yourself!" He moved over so his sister could look out the window.

Ayumu leaned over her brother and looked out the window just in time to see an unfortunate baggage handler get bifurcated by the powerful jaws of a voracious theropod. "Uhhh… little brother… Kazuki, bro… I _really_ don't think that's animatronic..." she trailed off.

Kazuki was silent for a moment. _"Awesome!"_ he gushed.

Ayumu shook her head and sighed. _'What is it with boys and bloodthirsty monsters?'_ "Kazuki," she said, grabbing her younger brother by the shoulders and shaking him as hard as she could. "THIS IS _NOT_ A GOOD THING!" she bellowed, "We could die here! And I'm too young and pretty and virgin-y to die yet!"

"… _virgin-y_?" Kazuki snickered. "Who says that? I mean, it's not even a real word."

"Shaddup!" Ayumu snapped, "I'm in a panic, and I can't think of words good when I'm in a panic! We're gonna die virgins! You're a guy, doesn't that bother you?-!"

"Not really," Kazuki shrugged. "I mean, I know that I have a girl that I like, and all, but I think I'm a bit too young to be worrying about 'this and that'," he said with air-quotes around the words_ this and that_.

Ayumu rolled her eyes. "Since when have fanfics _ever_ been concerned with realistic portrayals of sexuality?"

Kazuki opened his mouth for a moment, then he shut it. He scratched his chin and scrunched up his eyes, silently chewing on his lower lip as he mentally scrolled though an archive of all the fanfiction he could think of. "… never," he finally muttered, reluctantly conceding to his sister's point.

"Exactly," Ayumu said smugly, eyes shut and nose held high with her arms crossed. When she opened her eyes, she was treated to the sight of a suddenly naked Kazuki ominously reaching towards her. "What the–?-!"

Before the female Nishizawa sibling could even finish her sentence, her clothes exploded into sakura petals and vanished into the cosmic ether, and she was suddenly on a bed strewn with rose petals in a dimly candle-lit room. Kazuki, the lower half of his face illuminated to reveal a predatory grin with his eyes merely pinpricks of light piercing the shadows, crawled up next to Ayumu and grabbed hold of her with hands too large and too strong to belong to the barely pubescent Kazuki.

"Who are you…? Who…? Who…? Who?-! Who?-! Who?-! Who are you?-!-?-! " Nishizawa demanded fearfully as she futilely attempted to shield her body from the penetrating gaze of 'Kazuki, who had at some point morphed from Nishizawa's scrawny younger brother into a large and imposing shadowy figure of whom only a silhouette was visible.

**"I am the sky lord,"** the mysterious figure answered in a deep, echoing voice with the authoritative tone of one who is dominant over all he surveys, like a tyrant speaking to his subjects, **"Hurricane-tamer, father-slayer, a king among kings, sire of a thousand sons, thunder and lightning, very very frightening. **_**Me**_**. I am such, and **_**you**_** are mine,"** said he before casting off his veil of darkness, revealing Hayate's form, who was noticeably smaller than the prior silhouette. Only the eyes were the same: filled with a dreadful light. _**"Wagahai wa Ayasaki Hayate-sama de aru!"**_(2) Oh, and the voice, too.

"No… That can't be true…! That's impossible!" Ayumu closed her eyes tightly, fearfully, and she shrank back in upon herself until she was the size of a cricket.

Then the floor disappeared, dropping her into a bottomless pit. "Aiieee~!" she screeched as she fell, the wind buffeting her backside and ventilating parts of her that were never intended to be ventilated as her body gradually approached terminal velocity.

**"You know,"** said 'Hayate', who was falling alongside Nishizawa in a relaxed pose with his hands leisurely folded behind his head, **"they say that if you die in a dream, you'll die in real life, too,"** he said with all the pleasantness of someone chatting about the weather, even as certain… _parts_… flapped like a flag in the breeze.

"WHAT?" Ayumu shouted as she cupped a hand to her ear, unable to hear what 'Hayate' had said. She was trying very hard to avoid looking at anything below his waist.

'Hayate' sighed. "Of all the times for real-world physics to kick in…" he muttered. **"IF YOU DIE IN A DREAM, YOU DIE IN REAL LIFE!"** he repeated, much louder than before

"WHAT?"

'Hayate' groaned. **"**_**TRY NOT TO DIE!**_**"** he shouted before being abruptly impaled on a very tall, very sharp rock.

Nishizawa's eyes widened in horror. Even though it wasn't her Hayate, it was still unnerving to see something so brutal to someone virtually identical to her beloved. Tears welling up in her eyes, Ayumu looked down just in time to see a sea of innumerable stalagmites, all of them seemingly pointing at her, waiting to catch her like a piece of rare meat on a shish kebab.

Ayumu closed her eyes, praying it would end quickly and not be prolonged in any way.

_"Wake up, dear, it's almost time for school!"_

* * *

Ayumu instantly shot upright. Her heart was noisily thrashing against her ribcage in frenzied, adrenaline-fueled convulsions. Her pajamas were drenched in miscellaneous fluids – mainly sweat, sweat, and more sweat; as well as a small, off-yellow patch of moisture on the cloth between her legs hinting at a temporary lapse in bladder control at the height of her nightmare. Her alarm clock was beeping again – indeed, it seemed as if the device was sounding off more rapidly and more loudly than it ever had before.

"Are you awake, sweetie? If you don't hurry, you're going to be late for your first day of school!" Ayumu's mother yelled, provoking the tenant below them to angrily rap on the coterminous boundary between her ceiling and the Nishizawa clan's floor with what sounded like a broom handle.

"Be quiet up there! Some of us are trying to make a living!" shouted Miss Watashiya from below.

"She's right!" agreed Mister Hata from across the hall, "I need to have this next chapter in by the end of the week, or heads will roll!"

"… did someone knock down one of the walls last night…?" Ayumu pondered groggily before turning off her alarm.

"Sweetie," Mrs. Nishizawa yelled again, "you're going to be late for school! It's nearly quarter to eight!"

"Okay, okay…" Ayumu grumbled reflexively before stopping. _'Wait a minute… quarter to eight…?'_ Her eyes widened. "Oh crap!" she swore, "I must have overslept!" In a panicked frenzy of motion, Ayumu grabbed a clean uniform, socks, and underwear as quickly as she could before swiftly dashing to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. "Crap, crap, crap!" she cursed as she hurriedly brushed her teeth with one hand and tied her pigtails with the other (a skill she had perfected during a rather… _uncomfortable_… stint at summer camp). After spitting and rinsing, she quickly ran back to her room, got dressed, and grabbed her homework. As she headed back out, she took a moment to look at her clock. It displayed the time as seven fifty-one. "Crap!" she swore one last time before tearing off.

"Good morning, sweetie," said Missus Nishizawa, who was standing by the kitchen table. "Here's your lunch," she said as she held out a homemade _bento_ for her daughter. "By the way, there's a let–"

"'kaythanksbyemomloveyou!" Ayumu shouted over her shoulder as she flew past her mother and rushed out the door and down the hallway, _bento_ and a slice of toast in hand.

"–ter for you…" Ayumu's mother finished lamely, surveying the trail of miscellanea that had been strewn about by the air currents caused in her daughter's wake. "I really wish that daughter of mine would listen more often…" Mrs. Nishizawa sighed, "It would save her a lot of unnecessary hassle in the long run," she sighed once more for good measure before grabbing the phone and dialing.

* * *

The wind whistled in Ayumu's ears, its volume rivaled only by the rattling sounds produced by the drivetrain as she pushed her bicycle to its limits. She was pedaling as quickly as she could, her legs pumping up and down like pistons, and her behind not even touching the bicycle seat.

To and fro Nishizawa darted, expertly avoiding such obstacles as street signs, cars, and pedestrians too slow to dive out of the way. The adrenaline pumping through her system was intoxicating, causing Ayumu to briefly lose herself and take a right turn at a four way intersection when she should have gone straight. By the time she realized this, however, she had already come to another intersection. Grumbling, Ayumu turned left, forgetting to signal in her haste.

"Hey, little girl!" someone shouted as Nishizawa increased the speed of her pedaling in the vain hope of making up for any time lost on her little detour. "Oy! Over here!" he hollered. Ayumu silently ignored him, in hopes that the man would think she thought he was talking to someone else, which would allow her to leave without looking rude. "Hey, you! Oy! Look! Listen! You with the puny purple pigtails!" he bellowed, causing Nishizawa to flinch. No such luck.

Ayumu reluctantly came to a stop and got off her bike, but she made sure not to move away from it in case she needed to make a quick getaway. "Yyeeesss…?" she said slowly through gritted teeth as she turned to face the person addressing her, only to immediately wish she had not decided to stop.

The man addressing her was dressed in a very expensive-looking suit, and he was leaning out the driver's window of a very shiny, black car. He had the narrowed, threatening eyes of a thug, with a vertical scar over the left one, with an unnervingly confident demeanor to top it all off.

Seeing that he now had Ayumu's attention, the man continued. "Ah, yes. Hello, little girl. My associates and I – that's them in the back –" he said, pointing to two immense brutes in sunglasses and sharp suits, "were wondering if you might just happen to… _hrm_… 'know' a certain person with whom we are old acquaintances," he looked to left, then to the right, making sure there was no one around to drop in under the eaves before continuing, "this person being one Hayate Ayasaki, youngest son of Shun and… _mumble_… Ayasaki. So…" he paused to let it all sink in. "… do ya?"

Ayumu hesitated a second as she puzzled over what to do next. before deciding on a perfectly Japanese (i.e., infuriatingly ambiguous and ultimately negative) response. "I'll get back to you on that… But first, tell me this: why ask me?"

The scarred-eye man smirked. "Why ask me," he simpered with a smirk.

"Hmph!" Ayumu crossed her arms, momentarily forgetting who and what she was dealing with,"How immature."

"Heh," the scarred-eye man snickered, "but in all seriousness, we ask you because we have very reliable information stating that our old acquaintance, Hayate, is _quite_ the young playboy – a regular Casanova, if you will. And, well, you seem to be around the average age of his known conquests… not to mention the matter of certain notable… _hem_… 'assets' of yours..." he trailed off, directing a meaningful glance towards Nishizawa's fairly well-developed chest.

Ayumu's eyes widened. "Pervert!" she exclaimed accusingly, "Pedophile!"

"Ephebophile, technically," the scarred-eye man corrected her, "but that is neither here nor there. My point is… that is to say, what I'm trying to say… is… well…" he sighed. "Ah, screw it. There's no polite way to say this: I think you and our old acquaintance might have 'bumped uglies' at some point or another. You know, _sex_."

All the color drained out of Nishizawa's face (and hair and eyes and clothes and accessories). "… _what_."

The scarred-eye man rolled his eyes and sighed. "Listen, kid. I'm asking you a very simple question. All you have to do is say 'yes' or 'no', and we'll let you go. So, allow me to reiterate: have you, or have you not, ever fucked Hayate Ayasaki?" he growled.

"N-n-no! O-of course not!" Nishizawa squeaked.

The scarred-eye man nodded knowingly, then turned around to address his passengers. "See, guys? What did I tell you? I told you our acquaintance was only into filthy rich babes."

Ayumu twitched.

"But, no! You bozos _insisted_ that you'd seen him with this dirt-poor prude."

Ayumu's temples began to throb.

"So now, because of you retarded dumb-asses, I've just made a fool of myself in front of this scrawny little frump."

Ayumu clenched her fists and snarled, her eyes beginning to glow with the wrath of heaven.

"So tell, me, you two morons, who do you think is going to pay for this, huh? Because I'll give you a hint: it _ain't_ gonna be me!" The two thugs in the backseat shrank back from their superior and whimpered. "Because I told you two before: there's no way in all the Hell's of Dante that Hayate Ayasaki would ever go for such a fat,"

Twitch.

"Stupid,"

Twitch. Twitch.

"Ugly,"

Twitch. Twitch. Twitch.

"Dirt-poor,"

Twitch. Twitch. Twitch. Twitch.

"Flat-chested,"

Twitch. Twitch. Twitchitty. Twitch. Twitch

"Disease-ridden ho like that."

KER-SNAP!

"Graaahhh!" Nishizawa roared as she brandished her fists at the scarred-eye man, the background aflame with her rage,"Screw you, you stupid jerk! I could _totally_ have Hayate-kun all over me if I really wanted, dammit! Even if he _is_ living with Nagi Sanzen'in!"

The scarred-eye man smirked and turned to face the two thugs in the backseat. "See? What did I tell you? All you have to do to get the information you want is piss off the right person."

"But, sir, didn't we already know that?" one of the scarred-eye man's subordinates questioned.

"Yes, we did. But _now _we have a lady-friend of his whom we can kidnap and hold for ransom."

Ayumu gasped. "Gasp! Why would you do something like that? … unless… Ohmigod!" she shrieked in horror, "You're gonna kidnap me and take turns having your way with me until Hayate-kun rides in on his white stallion and slays you with his ancestral sword Excalibur because he's really the long-long-long-long-long-long-long-long-lost son of King Arthur and he'll rescue me and ravish me with his foot-long 'Lancelot' and then he'll whisk me away to London and we'll overthrow Elizabeth II and conquer the world with our magical army of genetically-enhanced unicorn super-soldiers and make all the attractive people in the world part of our beautiful harem and I'll be crowned the sexiest and most gorgeous Queen of Everything in the history of forever and we'll have a gazillion-jillion-bo-billion-banana-nanna-fofillion children and we'll have a solid gold palace designed by the late Frank Lloyd Wright on a cloud made of gumdrops and cotton candy inhabited by sentient pink pegasuses and yellow unicorns! And there will be cake!" Nishizawa jumped up and down in childish glee.

The scarred-eye man stared at Ayumu disbelievingly. "Er… no. You're just a bargaining chip to get him to listen to our proposal. We're just business men, you see."

"Then why would you kidnap me and use me as a bargaining chip?"

"Because we're legitimate businessmen. _Chivalrous_ legitimate businessmen, in fact. Ain't that right, guys?" he said, turning to face the men in the backseat.

"Yup! Yup!" said thug one in a surprisingly feminine voice, even though he was slumped over with his eyes shut and his lips not moving.

"Totally!" agreed thug two in an identical voice, while also slumped over and motionless.

The scarred-eye man turned back towards Nishizawa. "See? What did I tell you? We're chivalrous legitimate businessmen, and we have a business proposition for Hayate Ayasaki," he stated diplomatically.

"No, you don't," growled the same voice with which the scarred-eye man's subordinates had spoken just moments earlier.

The scarred-eye man turned to look at the backseat. "What the?-!" he exclaimed at the sight of someone the size of a schoolgirl dressed in a replica of the costume of a certain bat-themed vigilante sitting between the two colossal, unconscious brutes. "Who the hell do you think you are?-!" the scarred-eye man shouted, "I'm a chivalrous legitimate businessman!"

The figure stared at the man silently for a moment before speaking. "Who am I…?" her eyes narrowed behind the mask as her shadow seemingly engulfed the entire block in darkness. Her voice echoed throughout the darkness, seeming to bombard the lone yakuza from every possible at once, "I am vengeance. I am the night. I… am… **BATMAN!**" she declared before knocking out the scarred-eye man with a vicious right hook. The darkness faded, giving way to hallowed sunlight which chases out the demons of the night and discredits earthly fears as the mere figments of restless souls.

The figure then stepped over the man and exited the car through the passenger-side door. "That was too easy," she muttered as she brushed herself off, only to be interrupted by a tight hug and the feeling of a scarily-familiar pair of breasts squished against her back. "Oh, hi."

"You know," Nishizawa purred, "the only way this moment could be any more perfect would be for Hayate to be here as well… and for both of you to be wearing the Schumacher version of the outfit."

"How is it that you can be so perverted while acting so innocent, Nishizawa?"

"Aww, why can't you call me Ayumu?" Nishizawa pouted, "Addressing someone by their family name is just too formal. After all, isn't that why you insisted I address you by your given name, _Hi~na~gi~ku-cha~n_?" she said in a singsong manner.

Hinagiku squirmed in Ayumu's embrace. "No… not exactly…" she murmured to herself. _'… big sister…' _She shook her head, as if to clear it. "Come on, I've got to get out of this ridiculous getup, then we have to go."

Nishizawa nodded. _'Yeah, I wouldn't want to miss the first day of class after Golden Week,'_ she nodded emphatically. "… Oh, by the way, Hina-chan… What were you doing dressed like Batman in the back of that car in the first place?" The look on her face turned serious. "Were you planning to skip class and go to Comic-Con? Or maybe Comiket?"

"Of course not!" Hinagiku shouted indignantly.

"Okay, if you say so…" Nishizawa muttered dubiously before hopping back onto her bicycle seat. "Do you want a lift to somewhere you can change?"

"That would be nice, thank you."

* * *

Back in the kitchen of the Nishizawa clan's apartment, an anxious Mrs. Nishizawa was frantically dialing numbers into the phone. "Hello? Oh sorry, wrong number."

Hang up. Dial again.

"Hello? Can you tell me if–" Click. Sigh. "The nerve of some people…"

Hang up. Swear. Dial again.

"Hello? Yes, I'm looking for someone… Huh? What am I wearing?-! HMPH!"

Swear. Hang up. Wipe sweat from brow. Dial again.

"Hello, is this–?" Click.

Hang up. Dial again. Swear.

"… Oh no! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to–" Click.

Sigh. Hang up. Dial again.

"Excuse me, operator? I'm trying to reach someone, but the call won't go through…"

* * *

"… shoot the cat…" Ayumu whispered, stepping off of the bicycle. "Shoot the cat," she groaned as she dropped down to her knees at the sight before her, "SHOOT THE GODDAMNED CAT!" she howled in outrage.

The sign before her read 'Road closed due to construction. Please take this detour. _PLEASE &_ _THANK YOU_. '

Hinagiku, still in her Batman outfit, scratched her head. "Okay, so we have to take a detour. What's the big deal?"

Nishizawa got up, turned out around, grabbed Hinagiku by the shoulders, and shook her violently. "You don't understand! It's so late that now I'm sure to be tardy, no matter which way I go!"

Hinagiku sighed. "I never thought I'd say this, but it's only the first day. I mean, they usually tend to be fairly lenient about attendance on the first day after a vacation…"

"I don't care!" Nishizawa screeched, "I'm gonna be late! Oh, God, I'm gonna be late!" Nishizawa's face began to turn the same color as her hair as she started to hyperventilate. "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…"

"Whoah, calm down!" Hinagiku entreated, "You can't let little setbacks like this break you! That's not the Ayumu Nishizawa I know and respect!" she exhorted as she attempted to shake Ayumu out of it. "Come on, never give up, never lose hope! You taught me that!"

"I'mgonnabelate! –"

"Snap out of it!" Hinagiku shouted, before slapping her friend.

Nishizawa stopped hyperventilating. "… thanks, I needed that," she said as she rubbed the spot where Hinagiku's palm had struck, "but did you have to hit so hard?" She smiled softly. Then she got covered with a sudden amount of flying mud.

"Oh! Sorry, kid! Didn't see ya there!" one of the construction workers shouted sheepishly. "But ya really shouldn't be standin' so close to an active construction site!"

Nishizawa sighed a long, drawn out sigh. "Sheesh… Why does this sort of thing always happen to me?" she wondered.

Hinagiku giggled. "Come on," she said, taking the muck-covered girl's hand, "I know a place where you can change out of those dirty clothes."

* * *

_Omake: Dawn of an Empire; Fall of a Republic_

In a distant mountainous region, long lost to the mists of time, there was once a great and impenetrable city carved from a mountaintop. Its twelve concentric walls were tall and wide, hewn from virgin stone by the hands of giants in a bygone era. This city, the capital of an otherwise small nation, was situated on the only pass between two great and prosperous sister kingdoms. Trade flowed through this great city, and the wealth of the capital sustained its nation, which was too rugged and barren for farming. But more important than material goods was the exchange of _ideas_; ideas that made the capital of this small nation a center of knowledge for theology, philosophy, and the arts and sciences.

For centuries, this fortress city dominated trade as the only safe route between the two great sister kingdoms. As decades passed, subsequent rulers raised the tariffs on imported goods and began to charge merchants exorbitant tolls for the use of the pass, making the capital more and more affluent. But with its wealth, the city grew decadent even as the rest of the little nation fell deeper and deeper into poverty. Those who had made slaves of those who had not, and excess was as thrift unto the rich of this city.

Resentment festered, and such hatred was directed unto that city as no other before or since. At last, war broke out, and the enemies of this wicked city struck from all sides, from both without and within the small nation.

Thus began the siege of the city of Montpassant in the Montyamasanidan Revolution and the War of Two Fronts.

* * *

The day which found the supreme commander of the troops of the southern kingdom of Surlund was a dreary one, and one that General Hing'gikh Khatsdra the Red would have rather avoided. She and her forces had done a forced march in hopes of reaching the Fourth Fore-Force with reinforcements from the Seventh Hind-Force before Nah-Gee Suhnzienye, the ruthless dictator of Montpassant and titular ruler of Montyamasanidan, had a chance to order Master of the Southern City-Defenses, Mlee'ah to counterattack.

The rainstorm that intercepted them clearly had other ideas. "I curse this weather!" bellowed the youthful pink-haired general, following up with a string of vile oaths, the sound of which was drowned out by the crashing thunder. Hing'gikh shivered. Had she known the weather would be this bad, she would not have insisted of wearing her extremely revealing ceremonial set rawhide armor. Which could hardly act as such, considering that, except for her head, shoulders, and crotch, she was completely naked – of course, her numerous soldiers, an equal mix of male and female conscripts were all similarly exposed, as was the custom of Surlund warriors since ancient times. The general attempted to cover up with her cloak, but it did little to protect her from the elements.

"General See-Pants! General See-Pants!" shouted the ditzy messenger and brilliant cryptographer Foom Hibnoh as she waved an important looking scroll.

Hing'gikh sighed to herself, wonder what on earth young Foom's nickname for her was even supposed to mean. "Have you a message for me?" she inquired.

Young Hibnoh stared blankly at the general. "… message…?" she then looked at what she was holding in her hands. _"Ai elbereth!"_ she exclaimed, "You are right! How did you know that? Are you a prophet? You must be!"

General Hing'gikh groaned when the eccentric Foom bowed and began chanting: "All hail General See-Pants" over and over. With followers like this, it would take a miracle for her to claim victory.

* * *

(1): Before anyone tries to correct me on how I spelled _T. rex_, let me just point out that I am using the abbreviated scientific name. Now, for those of you who don't remember your middle school science classes, I will give you a refresher. Scientific names for animals are basically a method of categorizing them. They are in Latin, and they go Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, species. All but the species will be capitalized in a scientific name, and the "_T._" in "_T. rex_" is, of course, an abbreviation of "_Tyrannosaurus_", which is actually an entire genus, though you really only ever hear people talk about _T. rex_. Probably because it's American.

(2): As of my present plans, this will be one of the only two unique sentences in the story (as I have planned so far) that will be written in Japanese. Mainly because my grasp of Japanese is very fragmentary and largely theoretical, so attempting to write anything more complicated would probably just get me laughed by those who actually know Japanese. And I only rendered _this_ sentence in Japanese because it illustrated an important difference between the "Nightmare Hayate" and the real Hayate in a way that cannot be easily conveyed in English without it going into bathos (though I reckon that to someone with even half my fragmentary knowledge of Japanese, it would seem to at least be rather blunt). If you've read any number of Anime/Manga fanfics, then you've no doubt picked up on the meanings of the various common Japanese honorifics. And for those of you who may not know much about Japanese pronouns (which, by God, are insanely complicated for anyone who isn't Japanese), Hayate ordinarily uses the first-person pronoun _boku_, which can be translated as "I, a nonthreatening male" and is generally used by boys and polite/childish/businesslike men (though the connotations vary depending on when and how you use it). The pronoun used by Nightmare Hayate, _wagahai_, is an archaic form of _I_ with the same connotations as _ore-sama_, which can be translated as something like "my magnificent self". Needless to say, _ore-sama _would usually only be used by most arrogant and/or rude individuals. _Wa_ means or can be translated as _is_, and _de aru_ is an archaic form of _da_, a particle that is often appended to the end of a sentence. So basically, what Nightmare Hayate is saying is "I am the great Hayate Ayasaki!/我が輩は綾崎颯様である!" in a very archaic and presumptuous/aggressive manner. If there is anything wrong with how I conjugated the sentence, let me know what is wrong and how to fix it, and I will be glad to change it. As a side-note, part of me is terrified by the fact that I find it 'fun' to look up and learn all kinds of obscure and/or difficult stuff like this. I am clearly insane. **Edit: As Cytrus corrected me, _wa_ is in fact the particle setting the subject apart from the rest of the sentence, while _aru_ is the verb. ^.^U Thanks for pointing that out, Cytrus.**

**A/N: Heh, this is less than half of what I'd planned for the chapter, but it was taking so long to write that I figured I might as well just split it up into multiple chapters so I can update sooner. This should be able to tide you all over for a while. Hope you all enjoy and review!  
**

**TTFN and R&R!**


	7. A Short Update is Better Than Nothing

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: Blarg. Sorry about taking so ridiculously long to update, but certain miscellaneous things got in my way, keeping me from even working on the story for quite a while, and this particular chapter has just plain been giving me a lot of trouble, inspiration-wise. **

**Well, as long as I'm at it, I might as well catch you guys u****p on what (little) I've been doing. Among other things, I have been looking for a job (with very little success thus far), looking at some LPs, catching up on reading a few fics, trying to stay up to date on **_**Naruto**_** and a couple of web-comics, playing some ****video-games (one of the more notable ones being **_**Metroid: Other M**_**, along with some emulated classics****), preparing for college, and even just being unable to access the internet for a while because of a rather hectic couple of weeks during which we (excluding me, mostly, since I figured that _someone_ needed to take care of the animals) had to largely leave the house and stay in a motel because the basement had been flooded by sewage due to censored tree roots backing up the mother-censored plumbing. Again. Gawd, I don't even know why we bother keeping anything down there, seeing as how it gets flooded at least once a year...**

** But I digress: one thing I have **_**not **_**been doing has be****en keeping up to date on the **_**HnG **_**manga, mainly due to both One Manga and Manga Fox (two of the most high-profile manga scanlation sites) taking down most, if not all, of their manga in order to avoid lawsuits from unhappy licensers and distributors, much t****o the disappointment of individuals such as myself who do not have access to many, if any, affordable manga**** (especially since I don't even have a job presently)****. But that's the way the cookie crumbles, I suppose.**

**That's enough about me, though, because I'm sure you guys don't want to read through a thousand words of me talking about my life. Y'all are obviously here for the main attraction – so here it is in all its short, _'why the censored did it take you this censored long to update the censored fic if this was all there censored was'_ glory. **

* * *

**Chapter Six:**

**A Short Update is Better Than No Update… Right…?**

Ayumu Nishizawa looked at the building before her. Conflicting emotions could be seen flitting across her face, betraying the battle raging within her. _'I need to change my clothes. This much is clear. I can't just go to school in muddy clothes, after all…'_ she frowned. _'… But if I go in there, I won't be coming back out any time soon…'_

Nishizawa had to admit that it was quite the conundrum. Go to school in dirty clothes but only a bit late? Or go inside to clean up and run the risk of missing most of day to time lost within? She could not decide, and her indecision itself was costing her precious time. As she fretted and fussed about what to do, she could not help but ask herself: _Why did it have to be ice cream?_

Hinagiku Katsura sighed, feeling both frustrated with the delay and worried for her friend – Nishizawa was seeming very reluctant to go inside, and Hinagiku could not deduce as to _why_ this was so. It was just an ice cream parlor, after all. There was nothing scary or dangerous about the place.

So why…?

_'Could she be lactose intolerant?'_ Hinagiku pondered briefly, before she shook her head and discarded the thought as absurd. _'I have no reason to think this, and several not to. Obviously, it isn't that._

_ 'Maybe… maybe she has some sort of fear of changing her clothes in public places? Like a phobia, or something? … No, that's just as absurd. I'm sure I've seen her change her clothes in public before…'_

A moment later, Hinagiku's eyes widened eyes widened as the innuendo struck her, causing her to blush. _'No!'_ she thought to herself, _'Not like that! That makes her sound __like an exhibitionist! Places! I meant public _places_! I meant that I'm sure I've seen her privately change her clothes in appropriate clothes-changing places in public-ish buildings before!'_ Hinagiku nodded to herself in satisfaction. That sounded less perverted.

… Then the realization hit her a moment later. _'Wait! Not seen! I haven't actually_ seen_ her change clothes! I'm no voyeur, after all. I only meant that I'm pretty sure she's changed her clothes in public buildings before. That's all!'_ she hastily assured herself.

The sound of a tinkling bell broke the pinkette out of her reverie. Turning towards the source of the sound, she saw Ayumu opening the door to the parlor, a look of determination on her face. "Come on," she uttered grimly before muttering as as afterthought: "I'm sure one bowl won't hurt..."

Hinagiku could have face faulted at that. _'She… had been trying to decide whether or not to have a bowl of ice cream? What happened to wanting to get to school on time?'_ she wondered, shaking her head in exasperation. _'Nishizawa… I don't think I'll ever understand you,'_ she decided before following after her friend.

* * *

The Sanzen'in Special Police, despite suffering severely from the Worf Effect, were about as hardcore a protection detail as money could buy. Only the security details of certain world leaders and the Butler family were consistently better at protecting their charges, and only the armed forces of first (and a few second) world nations were consistently more well-armed.

Members of the SSP were selected from the best of the best of Japan's police and civil defense forces, and then given training in some of the best armed and unarmed martials arts, from MCMAP and Sambo to Krav Maga and Muay Thai. They were armed with the best equipment possible under Japan's strict weapons regulations, and they had access to a wide array of sophisticated technology designed to help them perform their duties as efficiently as humanly possible.

However, none of this was any help against the sleeping gas.

"_Maa~~~an_," a shady figure muttered to himself in French as he examined one of the many unconscious bodies he had stuffed into the bushes, "_That was some pretty strong stuff I used… Dropping full-grown men instantly, even when diffused over a hundred __square meters…_"

The individual's musings were cut short by the vibrations of the burn phone in his coat pocket. "_Eh? Who's that?_" he wondered before grabbing the phone and flipping it open. "_You have ten seconds to tell me how you got this number,_" he growled in the most intimidating sounding voice he could muster.

"_Relax, dear Arthur.| It is I, the god of war.| How goes your mission?_" the voice on the other end answered in English.

'Arthur' sighed. The speaking in English he could accept as the man's attempt to make him feel at home. The speaking in haiku he could ignore as an eccentricity. But _this?_ It was all but unforgivable. "_You know I hate that name,_" he hissed in his native tongue.

"_If not Arthur, what?| Should I call you Tarerid?| Or Thomas,__ perhaps?_" the self-proclaimed 'god of war' inquired in a smugly patronizing tone.

"_The only thing keeping me from disemboweling you is the paycheck. Seriously, I freaking hate hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE–_"

"_That is quite enough,| My petulant as__sassin.| 'Rat' will do, I guess,_" the caller sighed theatrically.

"_Dire Rat. __DIRE__. The modifier is very important!_"

"_Fine, fine – settle down.| What is your mission's progress?| How is it going?_"

Dire Rat chuckled smugly. "_I have already dealt with t__he SP. They will not interfere with the objective,_" he casually waltzed through the outer perimeter of the grounds, having already jammed the surveillance equipment. "_It is only a matter of time before I claim the Sanzen'in fortune, and you… the acting hea__d of the Tennōs family, will have one less enemy to worry about._"

"_Yes. Soon the Tennōs| Will claim our rightful domain,| 'Superb Tempore__(1)__'_."

* * *

Nishizawa could not help but stare in reverent awe when she beheld the interior of the ice cream parlor. It was like a shining monument to all that was frozen and sweet – a mecca for devotees of dairy desserts.

"Lo and behold: this is true beauty!" Ayumu declared passionately as she dropped to one knee, visibly startling Hinagiku who was right behind her, "O, this is the ideal! The true promised land! A place where caramel and fudge and all other syrups can live together in harmony: where one is judged not by the color of his toppings, but by the content of his sweet tooth! Fie! Fie on the petty trappings of society, for I have seen the face of God! And it! Is! Soft-serve!"

The purveyors of The Ice Cream Shoppe™ sweat-dropped at the sight of the mud encrusted high school girl pontificating on the virtues of the many various flavors and varieties of ice cream and similar treats as her pink-haired companion attempted to distance herself from the ecstatic Nishizawa.

After a few minutes of gawking dumbly at the spectacle, one of them decided to take initiative.

"Umm… Hello, miss, may I help you…?" nervously inquired a skinny, pale young man wearing an unremarkable navy blue uniform with a gaudy white name tag proclaiming 'Hello, my name is _Jun Kawasaki_' loosely pinned to its chest.

Ayumu, startled out of her vociferous bout of charismatic glossolalia, looked up at apprehensive employee. "Oh, sure," she said in a calm and casual manner directly contrasting with the fanatical zeal with which she had been filled only seconds prior, "I'll have a Quintuple Volcano Hot Chocolate Lava Orgasm sundae for me, and a vanilla ice cream cone for my friend."

Hinagiku _did_ face fault this time. "H-have you completely forgotten why we came here?-!"

Ayumu raised an eyebrow at her friend. "Of course not. I'm not stupid!" she responded indignantly, "We're here so I can change into clean clothes. I just figured that we might as well relax and have some ice cream while we're at it, since we'll be late no matter what we do."

"Oh," Hinagiku rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. Then she narrowed her eyes. "You're taking this rather well… especially considering how badly you freaked out earlier…" she commented. "What's with the sudden change of heart?"

"Like you said," Ayumu shrugged nonchalantly, "they're usually lenient on the first day after vacation."

The pink-haired girl sighed. _'My own words turned against me…' _She inwardly shrugged, _'Oh well,_ _I guess I might as well just go along with it for now. But still, I wonder if it's really okay...' _

* * *

"KYAAAAAA~AH!" shrieked Saki Kijima, running out of Hayate's room with all the celerity her legs possessed. _'It's true! It's true! The mnemonic was true!'_ she thought in horror even as her mind worked furiously to bury all traces of what Saki had just witnessed so deep in her subconscious that not even a psychonaut would be able to uncover the traumatic images. _'I can't believe I was going to __apologize to him!'_

What Saki had seen was something that, while natural for someone of Hayate's age, was nonetheless something that most people would not want to walk in on, nor to be walked in on doing. If this story were of a more raunchy persuasion, that encounter might have had a happy ending, but as it is, Saki's reaction was understandable under the circumstances. Over the top, but understandable.

As for Hayate… Well, once the shock and embarrassment faded, he had zipped up his pants, washed his hands, and set out after Saki at breakneck speed, shouting apologies the whole way. "IMSORRY IMSORRYIMSORRY! PLEASE! I'M SO SORRY I COULD DIE!" he yelled after her plaintively, equally mortified by what had occurred, but determined to make amends for any and all perceived slights. After all, as far as he was concerned, it was his own fault for doing such a thing when there was company visiting.

"Then just die already!" the blushing verdette(2) maid hollered back at Hayate without actually looking at him.

Hayate flinched at these words, but nonetheless kept up in pursuit, still fervently hollering apologies like a man who had forgotten his wife's birthday.

* * *

(1): This is a _Canis Latinicus_ pseudo-Latin motto that I pretty much made up on the spot. As far as the speaker is concerned, this means '_above/beyond the temporal_', in reference to the limited, fleeting dominions of kings and governments. I made it that way on the assumption that '_tempore_' would be pronounced 'tem-po-ray'. I am not a Latin scholar, and this phrase is intentionally bad on my part. And as for the mentions of the Tennōs family and these vaguely grandiose declarations? It will all be revealed in due time (read: somewhere around the climax of the story, so not for a looooong time), but this scene signifies the beginnings of an overarching plot developing in the shadows as a dramatic contrast with Nishizawa's more lighthearted quest, and it will eventually (as in all clichéd stories) provide a major conflict for the heroes to overcome (primarily because Nishizawa's quest, while certainly ambitious, simply isn't a good enough source of conflict for a fic that aspires to the heavens).

(2): I don't know if I actually _need_ to explain this, but I feel like I should, just in case anyone is confused: verdette is a word I created (as far as I know) by taking the root _verde_ (which means green, ICYDK (in case you didn't know).) and adding the suffix _ette_, ala brunette. It's fairly straightforward as far as fabricated words go, and this is not without precedent in fandoms where unnatural hair colors for which there are no practical English short-hands abound. See also: pinkette, bluenette (but not rosette, as that is a real word which has nothing to do with hair-color).

**A/N: Ooooooyyyyyyy, my achin' back… Sorry about the short update, but like I mentioned above: I have not had much time (or inspiration... censored fickle muses! -shakes fist-) to work on this or my other fics. But I will not put this fic on hiatus, even if it means coming up with a ridiculous ending just so I can shunt the rest of my ideas off onto a future sequel (… which, now that I think about it, might just be a good contingency plan…)! But I don't think it will come to that (any time soon).**

**Also, it might be a while before the next update... _Lo siento, mi amigos_... Or would that be _'mis amigos'_? It's been a couple years since I took Spanish class, and I haven't really practiced much, so I'm a bit rusty with the basics. Never mind the fact that, as it were, we never even really got past variable tense conjugation, and that's even with completely skipping _vosotros_. If I could afford, I'd probably take refresher classes just out of principle. **

**TTFN and R&R!**

**P.S. Because I'm just weird, here are the story's general stats just prior to updating: **  
_Hayate the Combat Butler - Fiction Rated: T - English - Humor/Action/Adventure - Chapters: 6 - Words: 25564 - Reviews: 8 - Updated: 8-13-10 - Published: 2-27-10_

**And, additionally:**

_Hits: 2,580_

_Favorites: 10_

_Alerts: 14_

_C2s: 1_

**Thank you all so mu~uuuuch!**_  
_


	8. Contest Announcement

**A Contest Announcement From EvilFuzzy9:**

Hello everyone, this is EvilFuzzy9. I'm sorry I haven't updated recently, but between college, DF, and falling waaaaay behind on the HnG manga, I haven't been able to do much work on the story.

HOWEVER! I have decided to do something... a little different to make up for the lack of updates on my part. I have decided to hold a little contest. I am going to let you - YES, YOU THE READERS - write filler chapters for this fic! Simply write a draft of a filler chapter of your own creation and send it to me as a DocX file. I will beta read it and send it back to you with corrections and suggestions for you to clean it up if necessary, and, depending on the amount of participation, I will post my favorite ones in the story (with credit where credit is due, of course).

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! The author with the best submission will be selected as a Beta/co-author for _Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan! _and will be sent a copy of the latest draft of the newest chapter along with an outline for the story as I have planned it so far. So, brainstorm away, guys and gals!

**Note: All entries will be due by the first of April (and no, this is not an April Fool's joke. I really am stuck with the story, and I really do desire a co-conspirator to help keep this baby going). **Thank you for your time, and good luck on your entries! :)


	9. Get on with It, You Lazy Jackass!

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

…

**A/N: ... ... ... bleeehhhhh. **

**Sorry for the wait; I've been preoccupied with school and games and studying and work and tuition -oh LORD tuition! D:- and a pair of psycho shihtzu-poodle puppies (even if they are just so stinking adorable), so I haven't had the time or motivation to work on this much. I know this isn't much of an update -only four pages long in my word processing program (speaking of which, the good program I was really good with decided it doesn't like me any more, so now I have to write in WordPad instead, which sucks because it doesn't even do diacritics), and with all the Schedule Slip it seems like it's barely even worth it to go through the motions and update it. **

**This is why I always inevitably regret trying to write long, multi-chapter stories - the little high received from completing a milestone like 25k words in a single story or finishing a chapter doesn't last that long, and if each chapter is longer than the last, then that sense of achievement gets more and more infrequent until you eventually can't even begin yourself to work on it, because the objective just seems **_**so**_** far away and the brain adjusts happy-juice levels further down the farther away the goal is perceived to be. And that doesn't even mention that, with my ADHD as bad as it is, I'll often just lose interest in a story or fandom long before the fic is complete - the number of half-finished cross-overs and one-shots on my hard drive can attest to this.**

**With that said, I don't intend to abandon this fic and leave you guys hanging. And if updates stop coming completely, I'll just post the plot outline so you can see how it was intended to end, maybe even pass it off onto a willing adoptive-author - but only if it comes to pass that I just can't write anything more for this, and I pray that doesn't happen any time soon.**

**tl;dr, "Circumlocutious masturbatory author-wangst topped off with the same old bullshit empty promise as always."**

* * *

**Chapter Seven:**

**Get on with It, You Lazy Jackass!**

The kitchen of the Ice Cream Shoppe, in stark contrast with the cozy atmosphere of the front of the parlor, was all stainless steel and sterile white tiles. Between the walk-in freezer, the condiment dispensers, and the high powered dishwasher, it was as high tech as a low profile, mom and pop establishment could possibly afford, unlike the humans staffing it. Between the heavily tattooed ex-convict, the half-baked, half-asleep college student, and the jaded chain-smoking spinster, the kitchen staffers were an eclectic bunch.

Haruko Torino, a fifty-something spinster with graying red hair done up in an outdated beehive, looked at the order written on the slip of paper that had been handed to her. "One 'February Vesuvius' and a 'Scandinavian corn-dog'," she muttered, her voice raspy from years of smoking.

"Wha…?" Jō Kusakuma muttered in confusion, "Maaa~~~n, bra: I didn't even think we_ had_ any corndogs." His glazed eyes communicated that there was little going on in the attic.

"We don't," growled the large, imposing Gorō Yamamura, who had the letters _c_, _e_, _f_, _f_, _i_, _k_, _l_, and _u_ tattooed on his knuckles in a certain order.

"Huh? But then, like, why…?"

"Vanilla ice cream cone," Gorō grunted, before grabbing a bowl and dispensing a generous helping of soft serve chocolate into it.

"Oh." Jō scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "I see."

"Yeah," Haruko nodded, "and maybe if you weren't such a moron, it would actually stick and we wouldn't need to have the same conversation every time someone ordered a vanilla ice cream cone!"

"… 'kay, then," Jō nodded slowly, grabbing a serving spoon. "How many scoops?"

"…."

"…."

"What? Was it something I said?"

Haruko simply sighed and took out a cigarette. "I ain't paid anywhere near enough to put up with this much stupid…" she growled, chewing on the butt of the unlit faggot, as she was not allowed to actually smoke in the kitchen.

After thinking about it for a minute or so, Jō's eyes widened in realization. "Oh yeah..." he said, before he burst into a fit of uncontrollable giggling and clumsily scooped out a large dollop of ice cream and plopped it into a paper cone. "Maaaaa~an… I am, like, _so_ high right now. I'm not even kidding. Like – like – I'm so high that…" he paused for a moment, "that I can't even think of anything to say about how high I am. Dude…" he paused again for a minute, before suddenly bursting out in laughter. "Hahahahahahahahaha!" ~!" he guffawed unceasingly for ten seconds before running out of breath. "Aha… ahahahahahaha… hahhh" he sighed, wiping a tear from his eye. "That was so freakin hilly… hilooo… hilarle… funny." His coworkers groaned.

Haruko, for her part (after staring at Jō for a few minutes during which nothing more happened), decided to simply ignore the young man's obnoxious outburst.

Gorō, however, was far less forgiving.

* * *

"_EEEEYEEAAARRRGGGHH!_"

The cry of pain echoed throughout the ice cream parlor. While the employees and the few regulars who were presently present were entirely unfazed, the yelling nonetheless managed to perturb one of the patrons – Hinagiku, who was in the restroom outside Ayumu's stall, waiting for the girl to change into her spare set of clothes. "Eh? What was that?" she wondered.

"What was what?" Nishizawa inquired confusedly from within the stall, startling her pink haired friend.

"You didn't hear that?-!"

"What, the yelling? Yeah I heard it. Why? Is that what you were talking about?"

"Of course it was!" Hinagiku snapped, a sweat-drop forming on her forehead.

"Okay, okay," Ayumu said, holding up her hands in a placating gesture despite the fact that there was no way that Hinagiku could actually see it. "But I really don't think that it's very important…"

This remark prompted Hinagiku to cock an eyebrow. "Why not?"

Ayumu chuckled sheepishly. "Hehehe... Yeah... it's funny you should ask, because, well… it turns out I _didn't_ pack a spare uniform today, since I was in such a hurry this morning."

The pinkette sighed. "Fine, I'll let you borrow my clothes a little longer, but could you at least lend me your dirty clothes, then? Because I'd rather not have to go outside in just a sports bra and shorts."

"Why don't you just wear your school uniform?"

A look of embarrassment, unseen by Ayumu, crossed Hinagiku's face. "... _muh murmodd'id mammuhniburm addome_..." she mumbled incoherently.

Nishizawa cupped a hand to her ear"What? I couldn't hear you."

Hinagiku blushed. "I said: 'I forgot my uniform at home…'"

The door to Nishizawa's stall opened. Dressed in a casual skirt of modest length and a matching t-shirt that seemed just a bit too small for her, Ayumu stared disbelievingly at her flustered companion. "… How could you forget your uniform, yet remember to pack these?" she inquired, gesturing towards the clothes she was currently wearing.

"… it's a long story," Hinagiku muttered reluctantly.

"I've got time," Ayumu shrugged, causing her pink-haired friend to sigh.

* * *

_**Just For Fun Interlude: "Getting Active In the HnG Fanfic Community Today!" **_

_A dare to any writing-inclined individuals reading this: Imagine, if you will, a pwp oneshot with __all the members of Hayate's "unwanted" harem crowded, nude, into a single tiny onsen. Hayate (clothing optional), falls into their midst, getting an extremely intimate face-full of virtually every even remotely attractive female character in the series. Sexiness may or may not ensue, depending on how pervy the person penning it is feeling._

* * *

"..." Nishizawa stared at her friend disbelievingly. "... what."

"It's true!" Hinagiku insisted, "It's all in his imagination, but he got distracted and left it sitting for so long that, when he picked it back up, hundreds of plot holes sprang into existence, giving him nightmares and driving him back from whence he came!"

"And where's that?" Nishizawa asked against her better judgement.

"Minnesota."

The purple-haired girl rolled her eyes. "Okay, now I _know_ you're making all that up. I mean, really? Some pasty, procrastinating college student in the middle of nowhere with an attention deficit problem and no job is controlling our every move? And you're saying that _that's_ why I'm trying to make a harem for Hayate?"

"Minnesota isn't-"

"-I don't care about that!" Ayumu put a hand on her hip and pointed at Hinagiku. "I'm asking what on earth this loser of yours has to do with you forgetting to bring your uniform?"

Hinagiku scratched the back of her neck sheepishly. "... I think he said something about needing some way to set up that fanservice scene from a few chapters ago as part of the 'plot'."

Nishizawa stared. "There's actually a _plot_?-!" she exclaimed incredulously.

Hinagiku shrugged. "I know," she said nonchalantly, "I was just as surprised as you are."

* * *

**A/N: I guess that nobody was interested in that first contest... Meh: _"C'est la vie,"_ as they say**.


	10. A Hamsters Laugh is Like the Morning Sun

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: Here's the next chapter of **_**ONNHc!**_**, with extra crack and perviness to make up for the lack of updating. At more than 10k words, this update is nearly twice as large as the next-longest chapter so far. Contained within are ice cream, cookies, laced milk tea, drunken ranting, a ridiculous new nick-name for a certain blonde heiress, glomping, light-hearted pettanko-angst, and a cornucopia of fanservice-y yuri antics. Also, the end of this story arc, or something like that.**

**WARNING: There is a lot of citrus in this chapter, particularly in the Imagine Spot of a certain character later on, the scenario of which borders on an outright lemon. I won't go into specifics here, save that a certain blonde heiress has a very dirty imagination when it comes to the possible futures of her and a particular blue-haired butler. Also, Hinagiku can get surprisingly foul-mouthed when she's angry. And drunk.  
**

* * *

**Chapter Eight:**

**A Hamster's Laugh is Like the Morning Sun**

It was a generally slow time of day for the parlor, with most people heading to school or work. Due to the nature of what the Ice Cream Shoppe sold, during the morning shift they usually only got a light trickle of customers who were craving something sweet to start their day. Because of this, there were only a few people present in the establishment, and most of them were too engrossed in their frozen dairy treats to pay any mind to the world around them.

So it was with only slight reluctance that Hinagiku followed Nishizawa to the front counter, where they began chatting about this and that while waiting for their ice cream.

"–and then they actually had the gall to post the pictures on the Academy website! Of course, my drunk of a sister couldn't care less, and she even spread some of the more risque rumors just to piss me off. She didn't even care that she was in the pictures as well!" Hinagiku growled, her face red with a combination of anger and remembered embarrassment.

Ayumu stared at the pinkette in disbelief. "So _everyone_ saw those pictures of you and you sister... doing _that_...?" She blinked, a contemplative look crossing her face. "Actually... that sounds kind of haw– er, interesting," she corrected herself, embarrassed at that verbal fumble. "On an unrelated note, would you know where one might happen to find some copies of those pictures? ... uh, for research purposes of course!" she assured her friend nervously.

Hinagiku glowered. "No, I don't," she told her casually bisexual companion. "It's not my fault," she grumbled to nobody in particular, "Sis was drunk and grabby..." She sighed wistfully. "Ah, if only it had been Hayate, instead..." she murmured. "... _Him,_ I probably would've allowed to go all the way..." she sighed happily, before realizing what she just said. "Er, I mean–!"

"Here's your ice cream, girls," Haruko rasped, interrupting whatever flimsy and unnecessary justification the girl was planning to make for what she had just stated.

"Thank you."/"Thanks!" said Hinagiku and Nishizawa respectively.

"No problem," Haruko said cheerfully. Then she bent in closer and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, "By the by, I heard you two talkin', and I gotta say that if this Hayate boy is half as good as he sounds, then you all had better claim him now before some hussy beats you to it," she advised sagely with a knowingly wink.

Hinagiku blushed. "C-c-c-claim him?-!" she stammered, her mind refusing to process this without conjuring some very kinky images featuring her, Nishizawa, and Hayate in a variety of obscenely compromising positions. "I-I-I... b-buh...!" she babbled incoherently as her brain began entering meltdown.

"Yee~uup," Haruko nodded, the tip of her unlit cigarette bobbing up and down with the motion of her head. "That's 'bout what I 'spected to hear. Trust me," she said reassuringly, tousling the girl's bright pink hair, "I know what it's like. But if you all hesitate for even a moment, he'll be lost to you two forever," her eyes glazed over as she straightened back up, seeming to peer through the misty veils of time and recollection to behold a now-distant but still bittersweet memory from her youth. "Ah, Klaus..." she whispered longingly and sorrowfully before sighing and walking back to her workstation in the kitchen.

_'That was... unexpected...'_ The two teenaged girls thought as they watched this middle-age stranger leave their lives as abruptly as she had entered them.

After staring into her dish for several minutes, Hinagiku, still mortified and not a little excited at the thought of having to _seduce_ her crush, hazarded a furtive glance in Ayumu's direction. Then when she saw that the pigtailed girl was happily digging into her ice cream, apparently unfazed by the idea of 'claiming' Hayate-kun as hers, the glance evolved into unabashedly staring with mouth agape. The student council president of Hakuō Academy could not help but marvel at how confident her friend was acting about 'this and that', when barely half an hour earlier she had freaked out at the thought of something as simple as being late for school. Either she had matured explosively in the brief interim or her priorities were completely backwards.

"Achoo!" the girl in question sneezed into her 'Quintuple Volcano Hot Chocolate Lava Orgasm' sundae. Shrugging a moment later, she finished it off. After all, they were _her_ germs, so it was not like she would get sick from it.

Then she politely excused herself from the table to go to the bathroom.

Hinagiku only stared after her in awe and befuddlement.

* * *

Inside the bathroom, in the cleanest stall, Nishizawa was barely resisting the urge to hurl into the toliet from nerves. The world was spinning like the merry-go-round from Hell. She was flushed and dripping with sweat and her heart was beating out a hardcore hard rock drum solo. _'Claim... Ayasaki-kun...'_

Her thoughts were deeper in the gutter than last autumn's leaves at the thought of actually _doing _anything so serious with Hayate. Bravado was all well and good, but she had no practical experience in matters of seduction, let alone what would inevitably come after if she were to prove successful.

But she could not allow Hinagiku to see her resolve waver like this over something like _this_ and _that_. Not yet. She was almost seventeen, practically an adult. She could not allow her master plan to fail now, so early, so far yet from fruition. _'I have to keep moving forward,'_ she told herself firmly, _'I cannot let myself falter: no looking back, no running away! I will make Hayate mine, and we will have a harem worthy of even the wealthiest and most powerful sultans!'_

Her resolve thus strengthened, she reached into her backpack, hands still trembling. She sifted through schoolwork and various supplies for a few minutes before her fingers finally brushed against what she was looking for. She grabbed it in her hand and took it out of the bag. Holding it up, she looked at it. It was the _bish__ō_jo-inator. She fiddled with the various dials until she had the achieved the desired setting, and then she pressed the big shiny-red button.

The air around her shimmered, crackling electric blue with sparks of diverse colors dancing lambently across her field of vision. Her skin was tingling, and she briefly felt herself... heating up... in certain places.

ZU-ZU-ZU-ZU-ZUUUU~UU! The air around her whined as it began to sparkle and turn various shades of pink. She gave a slight gasp. No matter how many times she used the device, it still felt like buckets of boiling and freezing water were being poured over her in rapid succession in concert with a low-power electrical current being routed through her veins. Nonetheless, it soon stopped, her mind clearing up and her confidence waxing anew.

That gadget in Nishizawa's hands was incredibly an useful invention – not only for subtly influencing others' perceptions of her, but also for calming nervousness and slightly bolstering courage, like a shot whiskey or a hit of tobacco. Also like alcohol and tobacco, the effects of the device happened to be somewhat addictive, albeit no more-so than chocolate or caffeine.

Regardless, that contraption was Ayumu's ace-in-the-sleeve for achieving her goal. In her opinion, it was the equalizer in the war for Hayate's heart, although Hinagiku would likely say otherwise if she knew. Stowing the _bishōjo-inator_ in the pocket of her borrowed skirt, she headed back out of the bathroom.

She had begun to formulate a battle-plan, and she needed to share it with her strongest ally.

* * *

Hinagiku, in nothing more than a sports-bra and a pair of "spats" tight enough to give any onlooker an ample view of her excellently toned buns of steel, watched in awe and confused arousal as Ayumu, who was dressed in very casual clothing that clung to her just enough to show that she had decided to go bra-less that day, demonstrated the proper technique for swallowing a hot dog in one bite. Hinagiku had no idea where she had gotten the hotdog, and she was too distracted by the ridiculously erotic eating to really care all that much.

"... And when you can that without gagging, you will be ready to fellate any guy you want," Ayumu finished as she casually tied another cherry stem into a knot with her tongue.

Hinagiku stared at Nishizawa in utter shock. "Th-th-that was… huh?" she stuttered as she felt her face turn beet red. _'So that's what she meant when she said she had a plan to share with me... But where could she have learned how to do _that_?'_ she pondered curiously.

As a matter of fact, Ayumu was largely self-taught in matters of sex. Like many young adults of the new millennium, Nishizawa had learned most of what she knew about the birds and the bees from women's magazines such as her mother's issues of _Metro_ and trashy adult novels like _Make Out Paradise 1-3_, _Make Out Violence_, and _Make Out Tactics_. When it came to fellatio, she had practiced with everything from bananas to popsicles. Of course, she would never admit to that in public, so Hinagiku was left to use her imagination... Her dirty, dirty imagination.

At some point, the student council president's train of thought arrived at Mammary Station, and she mentally began comparing her endowments with those of other girls her age: Maria... Athena... Fumi... Sharna... Chiharu... Risa... Izumi... even Miki... The sides of her mouth twitching downwards, she quickly came to the conclusion that odds seemed to be stacked against her in that particular category. Self-consciously looking down at her breasts and dismayed at how... _small_... they appeared to her eyes, her frown deepened and she pressed them together, darkly thinking about the generously-endowed Athena in particular.

Ayumu smirked at how self-conscious Hinagiku was acting, suppressing the urge to giggle. _'That bishōjo-inator_ _really works wonders,'_ she thought as she patted the remote-shaped device in her pocket. She then tackled Hinagiku to the floor with an incredibly sexy yuri-glomp, unable to restrain herself when confronted with the sight of the normally strong and confident Hinagiku looking so adorably vulnerable.

"Kyaaa~aa!" Hinagiku squealed, trying and failing to push her friend off of her. "Nooooo~! Not there!" she whimpered, feeling the girl pressing their chests together. Nishizawa was being shamelessly affectionate, and the purple-haired girl's enthusiastic embrace had forced the air out of Hinagiku's lungs. So not only was she feeling mildly aroused, but she was also suffocating. "Can't... breathe...!" she gasped, her face turning blue for want of oxygen.

Getting a hold of herself, Ayumu squeaked, a blush on her face. "Oh! I'm so sorry, Hina-tan!" she said sheepishly, releasing her friend from her bear hug. "Didn't mean to hurt you, but you were just being so darn adorable that I couldn't help myself." She smiled apologetically.

_'... Hina... tan...?' _The pinkette repeated questioningly in her mind before shaking her head. Once she had had a second or two to recover her composure after Nishizawa's assault, she grinned back. She patted the mini-pigtails girl on the shoulder. "Ah, that's okay," she assured her companion, before taking out her wallet and checking to see how much money she had inside it. Good, she had more than enough. "Are you all finished with your sundae?"

"Yup!" Nishizawa nodded. "You paying?"

"Yeah," Hinagiku answered with a nod, before going up to the counter to pay.

A few moments later, she returned, putting the change in her wallet. She opened the door and walked outside.

Seconds after that, she hurriedly rushed back in, nearly bowling over Ayumu in her haste. Her face was beet-red, her frame was shuddering, and she was covering her chest with her arms.

Ayumu put a hand on her friend's shoulder to help steady the girl. "Forgot what you were wearing?" She already knew that was what it was, but she voiced the inquiry anyway.

The pinkette nodded, her partial state of temporary catatonia preventing her from giving a verbal response.

Nishizawa smiled. "That's okay. You can borrow my clothes, and then we'll go over to your house so you can grab a uniform. That sound good to you?"

Another nod, and they headed back into the restrooms.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, they had arrived at the Katsura household, Ayumu in Hinagiku's casual-wear and Hinagiku in Ayumu's mud-covered school clothes, which were annoyingly loose in certain places. It did not help that, by the time it had struck her that Nishizawa should just be wearing_ her_ _own_ outfit regardless of how dirty it was, they were well over half way to her house.

Upon their arrival, they were greeted at the door by Mrs. Katsura, who was not even remotely fazed by their appearance.

It probably helped that her daughter had warned her ahead of time by calling home on her cellphone on the way over.

While Hinagiku and Ayumu headed to Hinagiku's room, the adoptive mother of Yukiji and Hinagiku whipped up a snack for the two of them.

By the time the girls came back down, washed up and dressed in matching Hakuo Academy uniforms, she was finished.

"Bye mom," Hinagiku said with a casual wave, making to walk right past her mother and the snacks she had set out for them. "I should be heading to school with Nishizawa-san, now."

Her mother nodded. "Certainly, but why don't you have a snack to fortify yourselves, before you go?" It was not a question, despite being phrased as one. Nor was it a request – if anything it was a maternal diktat carrying the full weight of her absolute authority, though her daughters had both gotten to the age where orders from their parents were invariably treated as mere suggestions.

Still, Hinagiku paused. It _was_ a tempting offer, but she and Ayumu were getting pretty late by now, and besides that, they had eaten at that ice cream parlor only a little bit ago. So, having made her decision, she grunted apologetically then headed to leave...

... Only to be stopped by Ayumu's hand on her collar. "Come on, Nishizawa-san," the Katsura girl grunted with effort as she tried to break free of her buddy's grip. The purple-haired girl stood firm, refusing to leave or be left behind by her friend. Hinagiku gritted her teeth and pumped her legs as hard as she could, but try as she might, it was ultimately a no-go. _'Wow,'_ she thought as she strained against the hold her friend had on her, _'Nishizawa can be surprisingly strong, when she puts her mind to it,'_ she noted.

Now, were Hinagiku to have persevered a while longer, she could _eventually_ have been able to pull Ayumu away from the treats, but the girl was persuasive. Indubitably, unequivocally so. And add to that the fact that the younger Katsura sister was not entirely immune to the allure of sweets, herself, well...

Ayumu smiled as she nibbled on a sugar cookie. "Yum!" she exclaimed eagerly, praising the baking abilities of the adoptive mother of the Katsura siblings. "These are delicious!"

Hinagiku sweat-dropped at how happily Ayumu was devouring the sweets. "Hey, slow down. You'll get sick if you eat too many sweets, you know."

Nishizawa hissed at the pink-haired girl. "NEVER!" she snarled as she hunched protectively over the cookies. There was fire in her eyes.

Chuckling nervously, Hinagiku stood down. 'Creepy...' was what was going through her mind. It was downright unnerving, the way Ayumu could act so vicious when her food was threatened.

"OM NOM NOM," Nishizawa quickly devoured the remaining cookies. Then she blew a raspberry at Hinagiku. "None for you!" she declared childishly.

"Hey! That wasn't very nice!"

"Neither was you trying to take away my cookies!"

"I wasn't doing anything of the sort!" Hinagiku protested, "I was simply making an observation!"

"Then go to an observatory!" Ayumu exclaimed, pointing at her friend.

"Don't point at me! Why are you acting so immature?-!" Hinagiku demanded, stomping her foot on the floor in the manner of a child moments away from throwing a tantrum.

"Because I eat to fill void in my heart!" Ayumu sniffled loudly before bursting out in tears. "Compared to someone like you, who is smart and strong and pretty… How could I have any chance at Hayate-kun?-!" she sobbed, grabbing Hinagiku in an iron bear-hug.

"Umm…" Hinagiku was unsure what to say, partly because the hug was cutting off the circulation to her brain. "There, there, I'm sure it'll be all right…" she comforted her distraught companion, "After all, I can't even compare to you in the breast department…" there was just hint of resentment in her voice, but it went unnoticed by Ayumu.

"B-b-but-but-but, what if Hayate-kun doesn't like breasts? What if he's an ass man?-!" Nishizawa wept hysterically.

Hinagiku sweat-dropped. While Ayumu did have a point in that not all men automatically went for large breasts, her assumption that such men must then be obsessed with derrieres was somewhat faulty. The surprisingly large market for foot fetishism put a sizable hole in the girl's theory, for one.

Not that Hinagiku was about to point this out. After all, even a staunch heterosexual like herself had to admit that, the risk of asphyxiation aside, the feelings caused by Nishizawa's hug were rather pleasant, even if they were only the innocently fuzzy warmth of a perfectly platonic hug.

Idly, the younger Katsura sibling wondered whether Nishizawa was drunk. After a moment of contemplation, she dismissed this thought as absurd. After all, where would a minor get alcohol? Hinagiku took a sip of milk-tea when Ayumu loosened her grip.

Hinagiku's face grew flushed. _'Yes,' _she thought confidently, _'there's no way that Ayumu could possibly be drunk.'_ She hiccuped and drew Ayumu back into a hug.

"Don't worry about it," Hinagiku reassured her friend. "I think you have a great ass. Hayate would have to be blind not to notice that."

_'Aww, how adorable,'_ Mrs. Katsura cooed inwardly at the precious sight of the girls bonding over spiked tea, before heading to another part of the house to give them some time to talk in privacy.

* * *

"–and I know that I've admired her ever since I first saw her, but that Athena bitch pisses me off!" Hinagiku spat, her face bright red and her eyes slight glossy. "I mean, she's got Hayate mooning over her like she's the best thing ever, but she doesn't fucking care! She goes years without saying a word to him, not even trying to get in touch with him, and when she finally sees him again she practically has him fucking killed! He puts himself in harm's way to save her from that shit, and what does she do? She bitches him out! Tells him to not get involved with her! Just leaves him hanging high and dry without so much as a thank you or a handjob!"

She slammed her fist on the table, nearly upsetting her ninth glass of milk tea.

"But what pisses me off most of all," she resumed her vitriolic rant, "are those swollen beachballs on her chest! She's already insanely rich and super-fucking-brilliant, but does she _have _to lord over every one else with those shitty swollen tits of hers as well?-! Damnit, that whore is practically the same age as us, but she makes us look like anorexic twelve year old boys! And those slutty, low-cut black dresses she always wears...! She might as well hang a sign around her neck saying: 'Look at me! I've got big fake tits and don't put out!'" she slurred bringing her hands to her chest and making a number of highly lewd gestures to illustrate her point.

"Yeeeaa~aah," Nishizawa slurred in agreement, only slightly more intoxicated than her rambling friend. "You know what, I betch yer right. Dey're prolly total fakes! Who does she think she ish, trying to lure Hayate-kun away from us with those her stoopid rubber titsh!"

Hinagiku laughed, her bad mood vanishing at her friend's remark. "Yeah! Yeah!" she nodded, giggling madly, "I bet you could bounce those things like basketballs! BOING!" she clumsily mimed dribbling a basketball and shooting it into a hoop.

Nishizawa snorted. "That soundsh like it would be sho mwuch fun!" Her eyes lit up in synchronization with her impish grin. "In fact, I shay let'sh go find her and do jusht dat, right now! Dat'll show her to try and keep Hayate-kun all to hershelf. Dat ash belongsh to ush, and da resta Hayate-kun'sh harem!" she giggled some more, before she was struck with inspiration in the way that only someone drunk can be. "I just got a shooper good idea!" she shouted, the muse of Bacchus evident in the tone of her voice. "We should TOTALLY make rubber-titsh part of our harem!"

Hinagiku grinned evilly. "Yeah! If she's gonna be rubbing that bosom in our Hayate's face, we might as well have her do it for the rest of us!"

"CHYEEAAA~!" Nishizawa cheered, pumping her fist into the air. "With her on our shide, Hayate-kun'll be oursh in no time! And then he'll give us hugs and kisses and take off our clothes and..." she trailed off as she giggled, her face red, lewd thoughts flooding her liquor-addled mind.

"LET'S GO!" Hinagiku roared in excitement, grabbing Nishizawa by her hand and dragging her out the door.

* * *

Now despite their optimism, realistically the odds of Hinagiku and Nishizawa actually finding their target were barely one or even zero. Considering how wealthy, important, and cosmopolitan the heiress was, there was really no reason to believe that Athena was even anywhere near Japan. For all Ayumu and Hinagiku knew, Athena Tennōs could very well have been on the other side of the globe.

In fact, when they _did_ finally find her, she actually _was_ on the other side of the globe – or at least, she was standing behind the desk in her office at Hakuō Academy, with a model of the planet between her and the door. School had finished up over an hour ago, and all the clubs had since gone home for the day. She herself was in the middle of changing her clothes, so all she had on at the moment were her brassiere and panties, both lacy and black. Her back was to the door, which she had left unlocked, as she had believed herself to be the only person still in the building.

The room was a spacious semi-circle. On either side of the large stained-oak door were tall bookshelves hugging the wall. The floor was hardwood with a luxurious red carpet leading from the door to the massive mahogany desk covered with various papers and trinkets near the center of the office, behind which was a black leather chair like a throne of the modern era. Past that was a pair of large windows which, together, took up roughly a third of the wall. The curtains -magnificent things of majestic purple silk embroidered with living veins of gold and silver patterned after the fashion of ivy growing upon a fence- were drawn at the moment, though. On either side of the covered windows were two suits of armor after the fashion of European cavaliers, which each bore a long sharp lance and a broad heater shield of brightest steel gilded and gem studded; upon each of their breasts was the standard of a certain clan, and their helms were crowned with circlets of iron studded with three flawless gems of shining light upon the forehead, which illuminated the chamber evenly and brightly. Past these four quiscient sentinels, the curving wall was adorned to the left and right with rich tapestries, banners, trophies of battle and academia, paintings depicting Hakuo Academy over the years, and marble busts depicting men and women of noble bearing.

Hinagiku was the first to notice Athena. Still tipsy from the spiked tea, it took her a moment to register the presence of her idol. After staring at the buxom blonde for a few seconds, she shouted: "RUBBER TITS!" at the top of her lungs, causing Athena, who had been in the middle of unclasping her bra, to turn around. Confusion was evident on her face. At Hinagiku's second cry of "RUBBER TITS", her grip on her bra loosened, causing it to fall to the ground.

Nishizawa, hearing this, pounced on Athena and began aggressively molesting the immensely affluent young woman's bosom. This, of course, knocked the Tennos heiress to the ground, the momentum imparted by Ayumu's flying glomp throwing her off-balance and onto her back.

Somewhere in the world, some smart aleck made an off-color blonde joke.

"S-st-stop it..." Athena whimpered indignantly, weakly trying to push the purple-haired girl off of her. Her face was bright red, and she was trembling beneath the weight of her assailant.

To Hinagiku's credit, she was sober enough to sigh in exasperation at this debacl. Face met palm, and, in the tone of one who is patiently long-suffering but gradually becoming more annoyed as they inevitably draw ever closer to their breaking point, the student council president calmly stated with only minor slurring: "Nishizawa-san... I said '_rubber tits_', not '_rub her tits_'."

Nishizawa blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice. Her eyes widened in realization. Then, she slowly looked from the nearly completely nude Athena "A-tan" Tennōs to the essentially inebriated Hinagiku "Hina" Katsura. Her ministrations came to a halt, her hands resting motionlessly upon Athena's bosom. She could really only say one thing in her embarrassment. "Oh."

There was a sudden spike of murderous intent from Athena. Faster than Ayumu could think _'OH SHI-!'_ she found herself flying through the air, the back of her head stinging from a massively powerful slap, courtesy of an infuriated maybe might-be goddess. For a few brief seconds, Nishizawa was freed from the bounds of gravity. Then she crashed face-first into her cohort's gut, and the two of them collapsed onto the floor in a crumpled heap.

The intoxicated Nishizawa, her face buried under the front of Hinagiku's skirt, made a sly remark about the nice view. This caused Hina to blush, scoot backwards self-consciously, and punch her friend's head into the ground. Hinagiku was an easily-angered drunk, and she was not in the mood for playful innuendo or school-girl lesbianism, what with the fact that one of the most powerful teenagers in the world was slowly and furiously bearing down on them, each thundering stomp causing her breasts to bounce and ripple with the force behind her footfalls, her beautiful stern eyes glaring a hole into them, and her full luscious red lips twisted into a violent snarl...

Partially lost in "_H-doki_"[**1**] reverie, Hinagiku's eyes hungrily traced their way down Athena's torso: past the firm, jiggling, full chest... the smooth, soft, gently-sculpted abdomen... the wide, swaying, womanly hips... She voraciously took in everything and compiled it to be thoroughly reviewed at her leisure at a later date. Half-dazed, coming down to the point of her idol's silky black-lace adult panties, she noted that the girl was, indeed, a natural blonde.

At that moment, several fluid ounces of bright red hemoglobin was suddenly ejected from her nostrils with the force of a fire hose, coating Nishizawa with a layer of blood. The recoil threw Hinagiku's head backwards, bashing it against the front door of Athena's office, which bore the _kamon_ of the Tennōs family (which was simply the three kanji for '_heaven_', '_king_', and '_province_' which comprised their family name written in descending order next to an spear with a tip shaped like a lightning bolt and bordered by twelve stars) with the family motto, "_Superb tempore,_" written underneath it as:

_SVPERB_

_TEMPORE_

Athena, a blazing sable aura of wrath issuing forth from her body and inexplicably turbulent air currents winding around her like a localized cyclone, turned the piercing brilliance and overwhelming power of her gaze on Nishizawa, who by that point had manged to get back on her feet. There was some ancient, unfathomable intellect behind the blonde's eyes that threatened to burst forth and annihilate the foolish mites which had dared to draw its ire... yet at the same time it seemed somehow... faint. _Impotent_, even. Almost as though whatever power was then in that grand, eldritch presence was but a mere shadow of its former might - like a dragon than had been shrunken into a gecko.

Nonetheless, that withered might was still far beyond that of the drunken duo upon whom it was now focused.

**"BEGONE. MY RAGE OVERFLOWS AT YOUR IMPUDENCE,"** the Tennos heiress commanded, her hair flowing upwards as though it were caught in an updraft, and the floorboards at her feet creaking as they threatened to uproot themselves, some unseen force warping them and slowly, irresistibly forcing them upwards.

But Nishizawa bravely stood her ground. She was not going to be intimidated so easily, no matter how stentorian Athena's voice was. "Look, if it helpsh mattersh any, I'm shtill pretty drunk right now," she stated diplomatically. "I'm shorry if I did anyfing to annoy of offend you," she said, attempting to affect an apologetic tone. She held her hands up in a position somewhere between 'placating' and 'not-in-the-face!-not-in-the-face!'.

Athena's face remained stolid, but her presence seemed to lessen, and the psychic conflagration engulfing her began to dissipate. "Is that so...?" she eyed Ayumu warily, suspiciously.

"Yeah!" the girl nodded enthusiastically, "Me and Hina here have lookin' all over for you!" She gave Athena a wide smile.

"You were looking for me?" Athena narrowed her eyes slightly as her lips shifted into a small frown. "Why?" Her battle aura vanished.

"We wanted to _talk to you _about Haa~a-yaa~a-tee~e-kuu~un," Hinagiku chimed in with a halfwit grin, lyrically elongating each syllable of the boy's name, her eyes slightly unfocused from the recent head trauma and the not quite as recent unintentional drinking binge.

Athena's face softened. _'Hayate...'_ she thought sadly, remembering the look of heartbreak on his face back then.

_ "Go away!" she screamed, pushing the blue-haired butler off of her. "Go home! Forget about me!" Her face was contorted with anger and tears were streaming down her cheeks._

_ Hayate reached out to touch the her, to hold her, to calm her. "A-tan... I..." _

_ She lashed out once, striking his hand. "Don't touch me!" she snarled. "I HATE YOU!" _

_ Hayate's eyes widened. Those words... they tore at his heart like a scourging dagger._

_ And yet... he would not give up. Not again. Not like this. "No..." he gasped out, "I can't abandon you... not again..." bitter tears welled up in his eyes. "A-tan, I love–" _

_ With a sound like a whip cracking, Athena slapped Hayate. _

_ He recoiled, his cheek stinging from the blow. His eyes glistened sorrowfully as he stared at his former mistress disbelievingly. He stood in place, unmoving - the shock was to great for him to endure. His legs truckled and he collapsed to his knees_

_ Athena held up her hand, ready to strike him again. "**Damn** you..." she hissed through clenched teeth. Her eyes were red and her frame was visibly wracked with her sobbing. "I _**hate**_ you." _

_ She could not bear it, yet this was the way it had to be. Her doom was unalterable. She was destined to suffer alongside the rest of her kin. But_ HE_ did not know this. __He did not remember. On that day, when they met for the first time in so long... _He_ had not remembered her back then.__ He did not remember any of them. He bore the greatest curse of them all and knew not why. As he __was, then and now, he __was guiltless. He __was Hayate Ayasaki, son of Shun and brother of Ikusa. __He was no longer her father. He was no longer the man who had led an army to the very gates of Heaven. _

_ Through his ignorance he was innocent, despite having been the greatest transgressor of them all. _

_ He did not deserve to suffer with her and the others. If he stayed with her, his sole chance at happiness would be gone forever. If he dwelled upon thoughts of her, he would only let it slip through his hands. He needed to forget her, to move on with his life while he still could. _

_ He needed to hate her._

_ So why? Why did it have to_ **HURT**_ like this? Why did it have to feel like she was tearing out her heart and crushing it with her own bare hands? Why did he have to look at her like that, the light his eyes dimming at this betrayal? **Damn** him. **Damn** him for making her regret this. **Damn** him for looking at her like a beaten dog would look at its master, spirit crushed and heart broken, but loyal still. _

_Always so loyal.  
_

_ Hayate _was_ a beaten dog, she realized. Although around others he constantly projected a mask of cheer and optimism, he could not conceal the truth from her discerning gaze. His spirit was long broken. The spark of that once defiant will had been extinguished so many years ago. He had nothing, or so he believed, so he threw himself into his work. Even with the vitality of a god, he was slowly killing himself, working himself until his body failed for the last time. _

_ It was the memory of her, she realized, the girl whom he had served during his time in that palace. Her memory only brought him sorrow, and his heart withered a little more every time he thought about their last parting. _'Does he blame himself?'_ she wondered,_ 'Does he believe that it was _he_ who broke the trust between us...?'

_This thought unsettled her. He should never have entered that palace in the first place. She should not have brought him there. He should not have had that stone: the cursed stone of the King's betrayers. He should not have had one then, and he should not have had one now. It was the branding mark of the conspirators, its curse was unbreakable. _

_ And yet he had broken it. He had shown her the shattered stone. The sundered remnants of the Stone of Freyja. How could this have happened? Any attempt to break the stone or its enchantments should have failed. Even the greatest of her brothers and sisters had failed in their attempts to do this, their minds flayed into oblivion as their powers were broken against those blackest enchantments. Even the prodigious talents of that young medium, that Saginomiya child, would not be sufficient to unravel the threads of doom -the interwoven curses and consecrations- bound to the King's Stones._

_ Clearly, there was some great, enigmatic Power behind the scenes, manipulating things to its own ends. The Ones-who-sit-upon-the-throne, perhaps? Or That-which-bears-the-morning-light, or even one of Its equals? The Highest Generals? The Mouth of the One? There were so few known to her who could possibly have engineered such a thing, and none of them dwelt upon the base earth. And none of them would have any reason to unmake the curse upon the stone. But could it be that there was some other player in the shadows, wholly unknown to her? She shuddered at the thought. Such a possibility frightened her mortally._

_ She made up her mind. Whatever might come, she could never in good conscience drag Hayate into it. She would not let him suffer, and she would not allow him to continue to languish like this. Not for her. Not now. _

_ Not ever._

_She would not let him continue blame himself. She would forge his will anew – rekindle that indomitable spark. Even if it meant breaking him. Even if it meant him hating her for the rest of his life. She would save him – from his curse and from himself.  
_

_ "LEAVE!" she roared, leveling a loathing glare at Hayate. _

_ He flinched, but he would not yet depart._

_ "Why...?" he asked. _

_ At that question, Athena's demeanor abruptly changed. It was now or never. She would drive him away from her, away from danger. She steeled her resolve and began._

_ She sneered, a hideous expression marred an otherwise fair and lovely visage. It was difficult to lie to him like this, but it was a necessary. "Because I **hate** you. I always have. Ever since I first saw you, I only ever wanted to see you suffer, so I plotted. I brought you to my home. I made you my servant. I taught you to trust me. To love me. And I waited. I waited for the right moment to bring forth the full weight of my hatred and _**break**_ you. _

_ "I led you to believe that, by seeking out your family while you were gone, you had betrayed me." She laughed, if it could be truly called such, for the noise of it was harsh and alien - it was a despicable sound, vile and cruel. An orc-laugh, the taunting jeers of sadistic imps. "And on that day, I _**broke**_ you. I drove you back into the arms of your neglectful, uncaring family to once more suffer for their sins," she paused, her eyes gleaming coldly."Ah, but it was even worse than before, wasn't it?" she paused briefly before continuing, "Yes, of course it was. After all, I had taken you in, shown you love and understanding even as you waited on me hand and foot. It made your life with them so much worse than it had been. Before you met me, all you had ever known was that life. It was all you knew. You resented it, but only as much as anyone would resent their lot in life. Intellectually, you knew that things _could_ be better, but you could not truly quantify the discrepancy between how things are and how they should be. You had a vague idea of 'better', but that was all._

_ "So I showed you a better life. Yes! I showed you trust and understanding! I taught you love and hope! And then, just like that" she snapped her fingers, "I took it all away. Once more, you had nothing. Only this time the hurt and the emptiness was a thousand times greater than it had ever been before, now that you knew what happiness was like! After all," she smirked coldly, "You cannot truly miss something unless you've had it."_

_ She watched Hayate's reaction, trying not to wince at the look on his face. He was hurt. She was hurting him. He was losing himself in doubt, beginning to question everything he once thought absolute and immutable. It was time for the master stroke. "Do you hate me?" she asked him, her expression stoic._

_ His only answer was trembling as tears stained his cheeks, clenching his fists until the palms of his hands began to bleed. _

_ Athena continued. "Hate me, if you wish. If you desire to kill me and have vengeance, then run. Run and hide and live in an unsightly manner, surviving until the day you can come before me with eyes like mine."_[**2**]_ She coldly glared at the weeping young man. "It makes no difference what you do, but if you leave now and never return, then I will not follow. If you forget me, then I shall forget you as well. Go now, and live however pleases you. But remember this:" she whispered, swiftly and smoothly retrieving and uncovering a sheathed dagger from down her blouse before pressing the razor edge of the cold, naked blade against his throat. "You live only because I deem it amusing to let you do so. You are a worm, and I WILL end you should your existence ever come to prove a nuisance. So go. Live like the worm you are. Get married. Be fruitful and multiply. And always remember that you and your descendants live only because it would have been pointless to kill a worthless wretch like you. Now **GO**! **BEGONE**! lest my humor shift and alter my decision."_

_ Hayate looked at her one last time before turning and running._

_ When he was gone, Athena collapsed -partly from exhaustion- and wept. None were present, and none saw or heard, as she wailed and moaned in lamentation. It hurt to drive Hayate away, oh God knew it hurt her more than anything else ever could. Not even being slowly eaten alive by the spirit of avaricious Midas King had pained her so deeply and so sharply._

_ Over and over she told herself: "It was all for Hayate. It was all for the sake of his happiness. If he continues to pine for me, he shall only ever find misery."_

_ And if she said this enough times, maybe she would even come to believe it. _

Shaking herself from her brief trance, Athena addressed the two girls who had invaded her office. "What is it?" she said, trying and failing to affect a harsh tone. She had only come back to take care of her duties. At least, that was what she told herself. But somewhere in her heart of hearts, she knew that this was a lie. Even after all she had said and done to save young Ayasaki from sharing in her fate, she could not keep herself away from him.

Nishizawa, sensing that this could be her chance, spoke. "Okay, sho, look. Me 'n' Hina here both like Hayate Ayashaki-kun. And by 'like', I mean we want him to rip off all our clotheses 'n' make shwee~eeeeet dirty love to ush. Hopefully at the shame time. Repeatedly and viga... vigoosher.. vigielarzle... vigoroushly. Yeah, that's the word. Anyway, we were thinking of making a harem for him."

Athena blinked. Had Hayate's luck truly had such a turn-around, so quickly? Had her gambit actually been this successful, this soon? Was this the result of all her hard work for him?

[Narrio Wakamator: No.]

Athena nodded slowly. "Very well, then," she responded evenly, feigning disinterest, "But what does this have to do with me?"

Nishizawa grinned a grin that was somewhere on the spectrum between 'knowingly' and 'drunkenly'. "WEEE~EELL, you shee, we have reason to believe that Hayate-kun likes you. As in, he wantsh to throw you down, rip off and do it like horny rabbitsh 'til the cowsh come home. Repeatedly. And vigoroushly."

To her credit, Athena did an excellent job concealing her blush at this statement.

"And we have it on good authority that you feel similarly towards him," Hinagiku interjected.

"Right," Nishizawa nodded. "Sho, we've deshided to invite you to join the harem!"

Athena blinked. Were these girls actually saying that they wanted to share Hayate with her...? Because it was a very tempting offer, she had to admit. She bit her lip, imagining what it would be like...

_ The door to their 'love nest' (a small apartment these happy newlyweds used when they wanted to have a little fun to help unwind after a long, hard, throbbing day of work) opened slowly, their husband entering the door. _

_ "Hello dear," Athena cooed, turning around to greet Hayate as he came in through the front door. She was at the kitchen counter working on dinner alongside Nishizawa. The two of them were naked, save for the white aprons they wore. While Nishizawa continued preparing the water to boil, her back to Hayate and her soft, round tush pushed back just a little further than necessary for what she was doing, allowing her husband to take in the sight appreciatively._

_ Hayate smiled cheerfully. "Hello, sweetie-pie," he said, setting his briefcase down next to the door and hanging his jacket on the coatrack. He walked up to Athena, grabbed her up in his arms (making sure to give her bottom a playful squeeze as he did so) and pulled her into a deep sensual kiss. _

_ Their tongues met, each circling and caressing the other. They fought for dominance, his tongue agressively pressing the attack as it explored her mouth as if every inch of it was new and wonderous to him, like he did not already intimately know every inch of her body inside and out. Hers did its best to rebuff the attacker, wrestling with it and pushing it back, once or twice even going into his mouth to strike at source. But eventually, she surrendered, a muffled moan escaping her lips, which were locked so tightly against his. _

_ Hayate lovingly stroked his wife here and there while they did "this and that" in each other's mouths. Waves of pleasure wracked her frame as he brought her to the peak, and with a flash of both carnal and spiritual pleasure her mind went blank and her body limp, lying in her beloved husband's arms as she basked in the afterglow of his greeting. _

_ Setting Athena down, Hayate started walking up to Nishizawa, only to hear the sound of his pants zipper being undone and his trousers falling to the floor. A few seconds later, the sound of greedy slurping and smacking of lips came up to him from waist height. "Hello, Hina, dear," he said in his ever-cheerful tone as his pink-haired wife gave him her special greeting. Then a pair of arms wrapped around his waist from behind to help Hinagiku, as well as occasionally caress her face tenderly. _

_ Athena, recovering quickly, was pressing her chest against his bottom, her apron abandoned on the floor behind her as she slowly slid herself up and down against him, further exciting all three of them, Hinagiku even reaching around her husband to help please her fellow wife. Their faces were red, they were squeaking and squealing and panting and sweating._

_ Once Hayate had reached his limit and Hinagiku had finished greeting him, he gently nudged her aside as she briefly savored the experience. Walking up to Ayumu, who had finished dinner preparations and was now setting the table, bending over a good deal more than necessary as she finished placing the dishes in their places, he wrapped his arms around her._

_ "Hello, Hayate-honey," the pigtailed girl giggled as she felt his hands reaching under her apron and grabbing onto her chest. "Oo~ooohh!" she moaned ecstatically as he tickled a particularly sensitve spot, before he bent her over the table, her body pushing aside the dishes even as he began rubbing himself against her rear. _

_ Athena and Hinagiku joined in, pouring sauce over her body from the nape of her neck down to her bum. Then the three all pressed themselves against Nishizawa, sensually licking up the sauce as Hayate began to..._

Athena shook her head to clear her mind of those very tempting images, covertly wiping a trail a drool from her chin. She honestly, REALLY did not want to refuse, but the nearer she was to Hayate, the worse things would be for him.

Reluctantly schooling her face into as cold an expression as possible, she glared at the two. "I do not know who told you such things, but I shall tell you once, and only once:" Her eyes narrowed further as she intensified her glare. "**I HATE HAYATE AYASAKI.**"

Nishizawa felt the overwhelming sense of enmity coming from Athena and grimaced. Any trace of her former inebriation was scoured away by the oppressive weight of the blonde's spiritual power bearing down on her. Trying to stand under this over whelming assault was, she mused, rather like trying to simultaneously lift a dozen refrigerators on her shoulders.

Athena watched impassively as Ayumu struggled to endure her Presence. With an almost amused expression, she focused. Behind the blonde appeared a Spiritual Manifestation of her power. In the form of a golden statue of the goddess of wisdom and war dressed in full battle-regalia accompanied by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding cosmic horrors.

In response, Nishizawa subconsciously called upon her own Manifestation. She figured that she probably did not stand a chance, but she would be damned if she was not going to at least try! With a spirited shout, she clenched her fists, feeling her own Presence growing and beginning to beat back Athena's, even if only far enough to give her breathing room. With a hot blooded howl, she called upon hidden reserves of strength.

Behind her emerged a hamster. But it was not like the other times. It was not just some adorable little rodent. Oh no, because this hamster was the baddest dude in the history of hamsters. With a bandanna around its head, service tattoos from virtually every single one of the most hardcore special ops organizations, enough weapons to equip a small army, and a buff physique criss-crossed with scars, it was a most definitely a certified Badass.

It also helped that it was operating a Dillon electric mini-gun atop a big damn tank which was mounted on the shoulders of an even bigger, damn-er, mecha. Which held a BFG in one hand and a dragon's leash in the other.

To Athena's eyes, the dragon, mech, and tank-piloting hamster were clearly labeled _'Nagi Sanzen'in'_, _'Hinagiku Katsura'_, and _'Ayumu Nishizawa'_. "Interesting," she stated appraisingly, "To draw on the power of others so easily without any training... Clearly, you are either supremely talented, or so incredibly pathetic that you can never accomplish anything without the assistance of your friends and your power is thus _defined_ by theirs." She paused for a second, musing to herself. "Of course, it's most likely the latter."

Nishizawa ground her teeth together angrily and indignantly. "I am not pathetic!" she declared. "TAKE THIS!"

Athena smirked. "It's already over."

In an instant, before Nishizawa's Manifestation could even make a move, it fell to pieces before completely disappearing into the ether – like it had been thoroughly sliced up by extremely sharp swords.

Seeing how easily they had been defeated, Hinagiku grabbed her friend's hand, and they ran like the Devil himself was on their tails.

"I'll be back! With reinforcements!" Ayumu vowed, looking over her shoulder to get once last look at the half-naked Athena before slamming the door shut behind her. "You haven't seen the last of us!"

"I wonder..." Athena murmured, bringing her hands up to her chest and crossing her arms under her breasts, pushing them up for none to see. There was a troubled expression on her face as she mulled over these recent developments. "Things have changed. Paradigms are shifting. Times of sorrow and tribulation lie ahead for us all. Some great plot, perhaps, is being unfurled for good or ill.

"How shall things fall, in the end? Merriment or mourning...? we may need to fight for our happy endings, ere this all is over." A shadow seemed to pass over her, and she swooned. Her eyes dimmed, and she fell into a spell of darkness upon the floor of her office. There she would lay for several hours before reawakening.

* * *

"Whew!" Ayumu sighed, wiping the sweat from her brow. She and Hinagiku had run all the way from Athena's office to the Nishizawa residence, not stopping until they had collapsed onto her bed. "That was close."

"Yeah," Hinagiku agreed, her heart pounding in her ears. Nishizawa had seemed like a completely different person when she was staring down Athena. She had seemed so much more confident, and for a moment there it seemed like her friend was going to go up to Athena and slap her. But then her heart wavered, cowed by the beautiful and powerful Tennos heiress.

And so they had fled, running full tilt across town, not caring how many people they narrowly avoided barreling over in their mad dash to "safety".

"She was really something, wasn't she?"

A nod.

"She was really scary... but also really beautiful."

Hinagiku grimaced. "See what I mean? I told you she would be an insurmountable obstacle."

Nishizawa groaned into her pillow. "Uh-huh. Darn it!" she complained, "Why did Hayate have to fall for her? And what's up with her saying that she hates him?"

The pinkette frowned. "I don't know. She was like that in Greece, too... Yet I can't help but think that she must be lying."

"I know what you mean," Ayumu agreed, "After all, how could anyone hate Hayate? He's such a sweetheart!"

The student council president began to grin. "Yeah, I don't know how that could be possible. I mean, _sure_ he is always putting his foot in his mouth, is constantly getting mixed up in understandings, causes misfortune and poverty just by being near people..." her grin shrunk, "is completely oblivious to the workings of a girl's heart..." her grin disappeared, "... can't go two steps without accidentally doing or saying something perverted or stupid..." she grit her teeth and her eyes narrowed, "... and he looks girlier than I do..." her temple began throbbing dangerously. "... Remind me, Nishizawa, why do I like that idiot, again?"

Ayumu sweat-dropped. "Think of the positives! Think of the positives!" she exhorted her friend. "He's sweet, charming, funny, brave, strong..." she blushed and began to giggle, "... he has a _really_ cute butt..." she began to drool, "... and he looks great in woman's clothing..." She trailed off, getting lost in her own fantasy world.

"Yeah!" Hinagiku nodded, her temper improving again. _'Think of the positives, Katsura!'_ she told herself,_ 'The positives!'_ she began mentally reviewing all the reasons Nishizawa had listed._ 'He's sweet, charming, funny, brave, strong, cute butt, looks great in woman's clothing...'_ She blinked. _'Wait... whut.'_

"What was that last one again...?" she asked her friend, not sure if she had actually heard what she thought she had heard.

"... that he has a cute butt...?" It was more of a question than an answer.

"... I... I see..." Hinagiku nodded slowly, nervously scooting away from her friend.

Nishizawa did not notice that, however. She was too busy worrying about something else. "OH NO!" she squealed, "I completely forgot about school and now school is over and my permanent record is ruined and I'll never get into a good college and I'll wind up homeless and have to turn tricks on the mean streets to survive and-!" she began hyperventilating.

SMACK. Hinagiku gave her friend a slap to snap her out of her panic attack. "Geeze..." she sighed, "What's with you today, Nishizawa-san? All that talk about getting Hayate-kun, and you freak out over missing school? Again? I mean, I'll admit that our run with Athena was... well, a disaster, to put bluntly, but..." She blinked. "Actually... What the hell possessed to go do something like that?"

"Spirits, I think," her friend answered simply.

The pinkette rolled her eyes. "It's a saying."

"I know. And I said, we were drunk." She paused. "At least... I_ think _that's what happened..." she said with a slight frown.

Hinagiku shook her head. "Nah, that can't be it... What would we have gotten drunk on?"

"Alcohol," Ayumu stated matter-of-factly.

"Oh, forget it. Let's just go do something."

Nishizawa stewed on that suggestion for a moment. "Wanna go see what's on TV?"

"Sure," Hinagiku said with a shrug.

After the girls had headed down into the living room and sat down to see what was on television, Ayumu noticed her mother coming in the door. "Hey, mom," she greeted wearily, too tired to even turning her attention from the incomprehensible game show that was currently on the screen.

Mrs. Nishizawa simply sighed. Without so much as greeting her daughter, she strode forward to the girl and shoved a wrinkled letter into her hands. "I have been looking for you all day to give you this," she said, her words coming out a bit more tersely than intended. She loved her daughter dearly, but she was tired and irritated. "It seems you won some kind of scholarship for some kind of fancy academy. Good job." There was more than a hint of pride in her voice. When she had first read the note she had been mildly impressed, up until she did some research.

Then she was overawed. Hakuō Academy, it seemed, was by far one of the most prestigous institutions in Japan, a diploma from there virtually guaranteed acceptance into Tokyo U or pretty much any other other college in existence, regardless of their grades, since simply getting a minimu passing grade there was on par with getting straight _S_'s at a lesser institution. People who studied there commonly went on to become politicians or scientists or leaders of industry. It was essentially the primary and secondary education equivalent of an Ivy League university, where the best and brightest prepared themselves for long, successful careers. Reading this, she concluded that her daughter, whom she had always known to be a bright child and who had always done fairly well in her studies, must have been a full-fledged genius to get accepted.

In reality, the truth was a bit more depressing: the contest was basically a charity on the part of Hakuō, giving a student randomly selected from the rolls of local schools the chance for a free education from a prestigious academy. True, one had to fit into a strict list of criteria before even being considered for the contest, but test scores was not one of them. In fact, they actually chose the potential entrants based on things like personality, appearance, and behavior. Specifically, they had to be considered "mundane or boring", "well-groomed but plain", and "unlikely to act out violently or be otherwise disruptive".

And while Ayumu was not exactly "boring" and a fair bit cuter than "plain", she _was_ perfectly agreeable and well-behaved, which was the most important criterion for entry. And so she, along with all of the other eligible school-kids from the greater tri-city area, had had her name entered into the raffle, which unlike most similar contests required no initiative from the students to enter and operated entirely on chance (except for the occasional bribe from a particularly desperate student or ambitious parent).

And she had won.

Reading through the letter, Ayumu's eyes widened in glee and shock. She was going to be attending the same school as Hinagiku. The same school as Hayate. Due to blind luck (or perhaps poorly-justified plot contrivance), she would be that much closer to her crush, as well as most of the other girls who had crushes on him.

At first, she smirked, leaning over and steepling her hands over her mouth, elbows on the coffee table. _'The timetable for the scenario has suddenly become much more flexible,'_ she thought with a victorious smirk, channeling the magnificent bastardry of one Gendo Ikari. Then she laughed maniacally, never taking her eyes off of the inane circus, the comedy of laughably imbecilic errors unfolding on the TV monitor, the channel having been changed to some news channel showing recordings of a session in the UN.

Everyone in a three block radius found themselves shivering as though someone had been collectively tap-dancing on every one of their graves at once.

Everything was going exactly as planned.

* * *

_Omake: Soused Ratiocination Session (Wherein no Important Individuals Find Themselves Permanently Deceased, Although Injury and Trauma are Another Matter Entirely) _

"Heee~eey! I gotsh an ideeeaa~aa!" Nishizawa slurred, looking from the cup of (Irish) milk tea in her hands to her similarly sodden pal.

Hinagiku, her cheeks tinged pink, raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

Nishizawa glanced side to side suspiciously, before leaning over and whispering conspiratorially into her friend's ear. "Ya know how Hayate-kun shorta looksh like a girl?"

Hinagiku nodded apprehensively. She was somewhat reluctant to admit it, but Hayate could make a very convincing girl.

"Weee~eell, I was just thinking... Wouldn't it be _hilarious_ if he were to dress up like a girl and stuff?" she smiled, eyes glinting mischievously. She was no longer speaking with a slur. Instead, she seemed... different. Scary different. Like, 'run for the hills and pray there's only one of her because oh god its terrifying and there cabbages everywhere and _OH DEAR GOD THAT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BEND THAT WAY!_' scary.

Hinagiku considered the idea. "Maybe a little," she conceded, unsure what her cohort was getting at. Nishizawa was acting odd, and Hinagiku could not help but feel unnerved by this. "Why?"

Ayumu smiled. It was a cheerful smile, but also undeniably predatory. It showed too many teeth, and Hinagiku felt herself expecting the girl to vanish into a ventilation duct. Her eyes were shining mirthfully. And it might have been a trick of the light, but Hinagiku could have sworn her eyes were _red_ for a second. Then the girl spoke. It was only a single word, but that lone utterance was enough to terrify gods and drive mortals to madness from the silent implications. For a moment, as she said that single terrible word, the person before Hinagiku Katsura was not Nishizawa, but a taller girl with alabaster skin, smiling crimson eyes, and short light-blue hair. It was only for a moment, though, and when Nishizawa was once more standing before her, Hinagiku found herself wondering if she might not have simply been seeing things.

But what did she say, you may find yourselves wondering. What was this word that bespoke of such terror and mayhem?

"_Blackmail_."

* * *

[**1**]: A silly phrase I invented solely to describe what sort of reverie Hinagiku was in. A compound of the Japanese slang term '_ecchi'_ and the onomotapeia _'doki-doki'_ for the sound of a heartbeat. Used as an adjective, it implies a combination of mild eroticism and youthful or 'innocent' infatuation, as in: "Arthur gets **H-doki** thoughts whenever he sees Ann." Can also be used as a noun to indicate a heartbeat quickened by pubescent infatuation or a state of such, as in: "Ann went all **H-doki** after she caught her crush staring at her." The 'H' in 'H-doki' can be pronounce 'aitch/eitch' or 'ecchi/etchi'.

Possible alternate spellings may include: _'aitch-doki'_, '**aitchdoki**', '_eitchdoki_', '**eitch-doki'**, '_aitchey-dokey'_, '**aitcheydokey**', '_eitchey-dokey'_, '**eitcheydokey**', '_ecchi-doki'_, '**etchi-doki**', '_ecchidoki_', '**etchidoki**', ' _achy-dokey_ ', '**etchy-dokey**', '_achey dokey'_, and any other permutation of these spellings that I have refrained from listing for the sake of brevity.

[**2**]: If this sounds familiar, that's probably because it's basically a slightly altered version of what Itachi Uchiha of _Naruto_ says to his younger brother Sasuke Uchiha after slaughtering their clan. For those of you familiar with Naruto canon, the significance should be fairly clear.

* * *

**A/N: Before someone asks: Yes, the omake was indeed a reference to the insanely impressive **_**Neon Genesis Evangelion**_** fanfic **_**NGE: Nobody Dies**_**, which I have finally gotten around to reading. **

**By the way, I hope none of you need neck-braces after that bit of Mood Whiplash with Athena's flashback. I wanted that scene to be in a more serious tone than the rest of the chapter, and ended getting my eyes wet a couple of times while writing it, especially with the dialogue between the two during the first part of the flashback. The divergent AU-ness of this story is beginning to show, methinks, through the alternate paths taken by certain characters. **

**Also, does anyone else think Hayate would probably be able to successfully pull off the Naked Apron look? Because, as many characters have pointed out over the course of the manga, Hayate is a very convincing trap.**

**(P.S.: I must confess that I was honestly surprised with how easily some of this flowed from my mind onto the screen, and with how long the chapter ended up being. Because, to be honest, aside from the scenes that were borrowed from earlier chapters, most of the content in this chapter did not get typed up in anything more than a bare-bones outline until 7/23/2011)**

**And, again, the stats prior to updating: **

_Hayate the Combat Butler - Rated: T - English - Humor/Adventure - Chapters: 9 - Words: 30,504 - Reviews: 18 - Updated: 4-15-11 - Published: 2-27-10 - Ayumu & Hayate_

**And, additionally:**

_Hits: 4,766  
_

_Favorites: 16  
_

_Alerts: 20  
_

_C2s: 1_

**Chapter Added: **_7-31-11 [July 31, 2011]  
_


	11. The Dynamic Manzai Style

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: Christ, I have no idea how I'm doing it, but here's _another_ 10k+ word chapter, and in even less time than it took to type the last one. It seriously only took me three days to write up the rough draft (though I suppose it helps that I had written up most of the first scene while still finishing the previous chapter). What the heck?-!**

**WARNING: OOC-ness for certain characters, harsh language, suggestive content, and borderline-excessive use of the word 'bitch' at some points (as in: "Queen Bitch is a bitchy bitch.") If I keep this up, I might end up having to raise the rating to an 'M' before everything is said and done.**

**[EDIT (8/6/2011): There's now a poll in my profile on whether or not you (the reader) think the rating of this fic should be raised to an 'M'.]  
**

* * *

**Last time on **_**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**_**:**

* * *

_ Reading through the letter, Ayumu's eyes widened in glee and shock. She was going to be attending the same school as Hinagiku. The same school as Hayate. Due to blind luck (or perhaps poorly-justified plot contrivance), she would be that much closer to her crush, as well as most of the other girls who had crushes on him._

_ At first, she smirked, leaning over and steepling her hands over her mouth, elbows on the coffee table. '_The timetable for the scenario has suddenly become much more flexible,' _she thought with a victorious smirk, channeling the magnificent bastardry of one Gendo Ikari. Then she laughed maniacally, never taking her eyes off of the inane circus, the comedy of laughably imbecilic errors unfolding on the TV monitor, the channel having been changed to some news channel showing recordings of a session in the UN._

_ Everyone in a three block radius found themselves shivering as though someone had been collectively tap-dancing on every one of their graves at once._

_ Everything was going exactly as planned._

* * *

**Now, for the next installment of **_**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**_**:**

.

.

.

**Chapter Nine:**

**The Dynamic Manzai Style: Boke and Tsukkomi!**

Back at the mansion inhabited by Nagi Sanzen'in and her servants, a sophisticated, high tech limo pulled up to the front gate. Its chassis was a shining obsidian black with tinted, bulletproof windows and a sunroof. It was twice the length of an ordinary automobile with thrice the amenities, powered by a top-of-the-line green energy fuel cell (a stabilized Makimura prototype that was still several more years of development and testing from being put out on the general market). If the need arose, the vehicle could theoretically top out at land speeds of over one hundred fifty miles per hour. It was armored like a tank to be capable of stopping even the highest caliber armor-piercing rounds, and it could be driven over a landmine with only minimal structural damage. It had a built-in supercomputer and a state-of-the-art military-grade satellite navigation system. There were also a flat-screen TV, a minibar, and jacuzzi for the entertainment of any passengers – indeed, _no_ expense was spared for the sake of their safety and comfort.

In the front gate of this particular Sanzen'in property, machinery whirred to life as electrical verification of the identities of the visitors finished. Slowly, the cast iron portal opened, indicating that the visitors had been permitted entry.

The rear-passenger door of the limo swung open in answer.

Out from the armored transport stepped its precious cargo: two young girls, neither one older than fourteen. The first one out was a boisterous green-eyed, gray-haired lass dressed in the latest name-brand designer fashions for her age group. A moment or two later came a young lady clad in an elegant silk kimono and stole who was, by all appearances, perfectly demure and adorable. They were Sakuya Aizawa and Isumi Saginomiya, Nagi's oldest and dearest friends.

"I hope Nagi and Hayate-sama are doing well," Isumi said quietly. She looked around curiously as they began the walk to the mansion-proper, as if she was expecting to see everything being dismantled and sold off to the highest bidder.

Sakuya shrugged nonchalantly, the ever-present grin on her face growing infinitesimally wider. "Don't worry," she assured her blue-haired companion, waving a hand dismissively, "There's no way that old fart, Grampa Mikado, would actually have the guts to just up and drop Nagi out on the street -with no way to make a living- just because she lost some stupid game."

Then she paused as a thoughtful expression came over her face. "Although, I suppose he _could_ be going senile... And he has just enough hangers-on who are just desperate enough to get their hands on a piece of his fortune that they'd be willing to do something along the lines of pressuring the doctors and lawyers into allowing the old man to make legally binding decisions, even if he's clearly not of sound mind, in the vague hopes that dementia will make him more pliable and cooperative," she concluded brightly before taking a folded paper fan SMACK on the schnoz.

"OW!" she snapped, rubbing her nose tenderly even as she continued to walk. "Whud–"

"–the heck," Isumi finished softly, the faintest trace of a smile bending her lips and making her amusement known. In her hand she coolly brandished a folded _harisen_, 'slapping fan'.

Sakuya twitched. Isumi was a strange girl, and while she got along with her well enough, she simply could not understand the young spiritualist medium as well as Nagi could. Sure, she knew things about the girl that even Nagi was not aware of, but at the end of the day that did jack squat towards making Isumi's actions seem any more logical or the inner workings of her mind any more comprehensible – even to someone like Sakuya.

"Dot fuddy," the Aizawa girl grumbled, her nose red and swollen. "Who do tig you are, spackig be od buh doze like dat?-! If eddybuddy shud be duh fool, id sud be you!"

[Narrio Wakamator: "Translation: Who do you think you are, smacking me on the nose like that?-! If anybody should be the fool, it should be you!"]

That earned her another whack with the fan; this time on the forehead.

"What the heck," Isumi said in her characteristically slow and gentle fashion, in stark contrast with how enthusiastically she was fulfilling the role of the straight man (or thirteen year old schoolgirl, as it were).

"You doh," Sakuya mused sorely, "I tig you bight be edjoyig dis a _bit_ too buch to be hellfy."

[Narrio Wakamator: "Translation: You know, I think you might be enjoying this a _bit_ too much to be healthy."]

SMACK. Back of the head.

"What the heck."

"OW! Geeze, I geddit, I geddit! Yer obbiously still sore about all dose tibes I practiced by act od you whed we were yugger."

[Narrio Wakamator: "Translation: OW! Geeze, I get it, I get it! You're obviously still sore about all those times I practiced my act on you when we were younger."]

SMACK. Forehead again.

"What the heck."

"Yer _a lot_ strogger dad you look, you doh. I bead, you bay seeb so tidy add wibpy add weak ad first gladce, bud you hid like a fuggig **TRUCK**."

[Narrio Wakamator: "Translation: You're _a lot_ stronger than you look, you know. I mean, you may seem so tiny and wimpy at and weak at first, but you hit like a **TRUCK**."]

SMACK. Her left cheek.

"What the heck."

Sakuya swore.

SMACK. Her right cheek.

"What the heck."

Sakuya remained silent, picking up her pace a little in hopes of getting a meat-shield between her and Isumi that much sooner. It was quiet for a moment or two, save for the sounds of their footsteps. They were far enough into Nagi's estate that the normally omnipresent hustle and bustle of the city had faded into the distance. Even the protection detail that they were not supposed to know was shadowing them was doing a superb job of remaining undetectable.

There was a pause. Without an external outlet, Sakuya's boundless emotional energy instead turned inwards. She began to think, entering a state of meditative contemplation. Everything seemed to go still as Sakuya felt herself attain a zen state of awareness. Her heartbeat slowed. Her movements became more fluid and purposeful. Her mind quieted and calmed. She no longer cared for petty pursuits of childish diversions. She did not think about going here or there or doing this or that. She did not fret or fuss, worry or whine. She simply _was_ – and that was all that mattered.

She was at one with the Universe. The ebb and flow of spiritual energy, the coursing and pulsing of cosmic leylines, and the great steady heartbeat of the planet – she felt all of these things. She transcended the boundaries of the temporal realm. She walked through the astral plane, communing with the souls of long dead prophets and wise men. With a single profound revelation, she attained enlightenment and became as the Buddha. She was become the collective consciousness of humanity. She knew not such things as a 'beginning' or an 'end'. As was _Samsara_, the Great Cycle of life, death, and rebirth, so was she. She had always been since the world began, and she would always be until the world ended.

It was all so clear to her now. Everything was so obvious. Where before she had only seen chance and chaos, she now saw and understood the Purpose in all things, great and small. Her heart was filled with peace, her very aura thrumming with the song of creation. All nearby creatures bent their minds upon her, and they beheld in awe and wonder this being before them: a tranquil giant who strode forth from the forgotten depths of eternity with prophetic purpose, the light of its soul an inextinguishable, blazing beacon which pierced and illuminated the blackest depths of the darkness of ignorance. She now knew and understood her role. And she was content – content to play her part to the end and do as she must. Her purpose, the reason for which she existed was self-evident... it was–

SMACK.

"What the heck."

"Oh cubbod, I diddut ebed say eddytig dat tibe!"

[Narrio Wakamator: "Translation: Oh come on, I didn't even say anything that time!"]

Giggle.

"Okay, dat's it! Gibbe dat dab fad!"

* * *

Maria stared in disbelief at the two girls, Sakuya Aizawa and Isumi Saginomiya, who were standing outside the mansion's front door. Her mouth threatened to fall open in shock. Now, it was not their presence itself that surprised her – they were Nagi's best friends, so it was perfectly normal for them to come to pay her a visit. No, what made her stare at them like they were alien invaders who had just told her that their ship was out of fuel and ran on used underwear and that her unmentionables were the ideal kind so 'would you please give us your panties?' was their state of dress.

The girls' clothes were dirty and scuffed and tattered with several rips and tears – like they had gone through a blender that was filled with dirt and grass and twigs and leaves. Sakuya's face and arms were covered with angry red welts, but she was nonetheless wearing a satisfied smirk. Isumi appeared to be less injured -only a few scratches here and there littered her skin- but her clothes were in rather worse shape. Indeed, looking at Isumi, Maria could not help but think that, with her clothes as shredded and tattered as they were, this was probably the most she had ever seen of the polite girl's skin – even counting trips to hot springs.

Additionally, the girl was directing downright adorable death glares at her friend every few seconds.

"What happened?" Maria inquired, partly out of politeness, but mostly out of curiosity.

"Me 'n' 'sumi got into a fight," Sakuya answered simply. She had a shit-eating grin on her face and looked all too proud of this.

"What did you do?" Maria bluntly asked the exuberant Aizawa, wondering how she had managed to set off the normally sweet and patient Saginomiya heiress

The gray-haired girl shook her head. "SHE started it." She pointed at Isumi with her thumb. "I only _finished_ it." Her smirk grew, evidently quite satisfied with the state of the other girl's clothing.

Maria crossed her arms and stared sternly at Sakuya. "When I ask you a question, I expect a truthful answer," she chided firmly.

"She... is not lying," Isumi whispered.

Maria blinked, before turning to face Isumi. "You mean to say _you_ started the fight?" The maid could not comprehend the idea of this kind, gentle girl participating in a physical altercation, let alone _starting_ one.

Isumi paused. She appeared to be mulling over what had happened. After a minute or so of contemplation, she spoke, answering the question carefully and thoughtfully. "I initiated the physical part of the conflict, yes, but the underlying argument that caused the fight was instigated by _her_ callous, hateful remarks." She glowered at Sakuya, all pretenses of politeness vanishing. "She was being a 'goddamn bitch', I believe is how one would describe it."

Maria's jaw dropped. She was not one to be easily fazed, but Isumi's harsh remark was completely out of character for her. It also did not help that she had said it in the same way she said everything, if a bit faster and with more than a little venom. But at the same time, she was also on familiar ground again in that it seemed that Sakuya _was_, in fact, to blame for the incident. Turning her gaze once more on the Aizawa girl, she demanded answers. "Well?"

Sakuya shook her head in exasperation. "It was just a joke! How many times do I have to tell you that, Isumi-chan?"

The girl in question simply glowered darkly at her. "Hayate-sama is not like that. He would not just fall in love with some shallow harlot."

"I am not 'a shallow harlot'!" Sakuya retorted testily. "And I never claimed he was in love with me. All I said was, that since he and I have both seen each other naked, I would have the advantage over you if I ever decided to pursue him." When Isumi's hand twitched to where she was stowing the paper fan, she quickly added: "But that is never going to happen!" Then she chuckled nervously in an attempt to lighten the mood, rubbing the back of er neck sheepishly.

SMACK.

_'Wrong answer,'_ Maria guessed. She winced in sympathy at the way Sakuya's head snapped backwards from the blow.

"What, is Hayate-sama not good enough for you?" Isumi demanded in her customary fashion of speaking. "You must think far too highly of yourself, if you would believe such a thing."

"No, no! Nothing like that! I just figured he was out of bounds for me since, y'know, both you and Nagi are already after him."

SMACK.

"Are you saying that if you were to chase Hayate-sama, Nagi and I would have no chance? Do you think you are better than us?" Isumi asked dangerously.

Sakuya opened her mouth to defend herself, only to get a Look. Adopting a confident smirk, she drawled: "Well, yeah. I mean, just _look_ at this body!" she bragged, tracing an hourglass figure in the air with her fingers. "I'm already too damn hot for my own good, and I'm only going to keep filling out over the next few years. Why? _Jealous_?"

The ensuing flurry of blows was exceptionally fierce, and Sakuya received several more bruises, especially on her chest and hips, which Isumi seemed to be focusing on out of spite and frustration. After a few minutes of this, the girl eventually ran out of steam.

Eying the sore, bloodied form of her friend-turned-opponent twitching pitifully on the floor, Isumi delivered the _coup de grâce_. "To answer your question: No. Despite what you may think, I would never envy the appearance of such a bloated hog as yourself. Your body is disgusting, and no decent, sane individual would ever willingly touch it. So go home and cry yourself to sleep. And do not dare ever touch yourself while thinking of my Hayate-sama. I **WILL** know if you d, and I **WILL** hurt you. Bitch."

_It's always the quiet ones...'_ Maria sweat-dropped. The scariest part about all of that was the fact, that, throughout all of it, Isumi's voice had not once changed from its accustomed tone and pace, which made for a rather surreal spectacle.

Then Sakuya got up off the floor, grinned, and laughed. "Excellent!" she said proudly, giving two thumbs up and causing Isumi's ill mood to abruptly evaporate. "So, Maria, what do you think of her performance?"

"... eh?" Maria stared blankly at Sakuya, uncertain what to say or think.

"Oh, right," the girl said as she scratched the back of her neck sheepishly. "I forgot to warn you that 'sumi-chan would be practicing her bitch-fu with me."

"... ... ... eh?"

"It was her idea – the training, I mean," the Aizawa heiress continued. "A while ago, Aika Kasumi verbally ripped her a new one without even trying." She frowned empathetically. "I was there. It was after school, and she ran into us saying goodbye to Hayate. She heard Isumi refer to him as Hayate-sama and... well..." She sighed. "It was absolutely **BRUTAL**. She said that if Isumi was going to refer to Hayate as her superior, then she should just... just... no. No... I can't say it. I refuse to say it. What she said was just cruel, and it was way out of line. And anyways, after that, Isumi decided that she needed to learn how to hold her own in a bitch-fight, so she came to me -why, I don't know- and one thing led to another... And, well, here we are," she finished with a noncommittal shrug.

Sakuya's eyes briefly flashed with the memory of the event, and Maria followed their gaze, landing on Isumi who was shivering with her teeth grit and her fists clenched. She seemed... haunted. "What did she... What did Aika say to you?" Maria asked, even as she fought down the maternalistic urge to immediately hunt that girl down and make her suffer. She knew that Aika had a tendency to say the worst possible things to people in the friendliest, most casual way, but that would hardly justify murdering the girl for making Isumi cry.

Isumi shivered. Reluctantly steeling her nerves, she began. 'On that day, after I had said farewell to Hayate-sama, Kasumi-san came up to me, and she said: 'Well, well, well... What's this...? Hmm... I see you called him Hayate-sama, eh? My, my, my, but isn't _that_ improper? I mean, for someone of your standing to show deference to some penniless, untrustworthy-looking urchin like Ayasaki is utterly backwards.

"'Or... could it be...?' She looked at me and smirked. It was... tt... that expression... that look she gave me, like she could see right through me and knew everything, right down to my deepest, most personal secrets... and she said to me: 'Ah, but maybe you don't care about all that, and you just want to stand by his side and support and service him as a wife or a lover. Am I right?' She laughed like she had just told a witty joke. 'Oh, of course I'm right – I mean that's all you're really good for, anyway.

"'After all, in this day and age, someone like you, who can't even raise her voice and say what she thinks, would be utterly useless as a leader. Even as the leader of such superstitious neanderthals as the Saginomiya clan. I mean, look at you: what self-respecting, independent, modern woman actually dresses like _that_ at all times? You're like a little porcelain doll: you're cute, but you have no brain and no use, except to be married off to some rich, influential geezer as a pretty little trophy wife or glorified breeding breeding stock.

"'But if you can fall so easily for some uncouth commoner like Ayasaki, then it would seem that, clearly, you have already failed at even that much. So why don't you just go and suck him off like a good little girl, while the rest of us go on to have successful careers and happy lives. Hell, maybe if you're lucky, Ayasaki will turn out to be a wife-beater and break you before you have the chance to further disgrace your family by bearing his ill-bred bastard children.'"

Maria's jaw dropped. Shock and disgust danced across her face. Hearing what Aika had said made her think: _'To Hell with tact and restraint,'_ she thought darkly,_ 'I'm going to fucking murder that bitch!'_ However, before she could actually do anything, she was stopped by Sakuya's hand on her shoulder.

"Don't head off and do anything rash," the girl said, correctly guessing the maid's intentions, "Aika may be a passive-aggressive cun-" at Maria's warning glare, she quickly backpedaled, "-try singer, but she's also influential and admired by tons of foolish girls who call her the 'Love-Master'. And even if she makes Isumi break down and cry, she's still a favorite of Grampa Mikado. So if you hurt her, you'll only be making things worse for Nagi.

"I mean, she's already getting cut out of the will all because of some retarded contest, so who knows what he'd do if she or someone connected to her did something that would actually merit retaliation? Like killing the Queen Bitch - no matter how far her popularity has fallen in certain circles."

Maria cocked an eyebrow. "'Queen Bitch?'" she said questioningly.

Isumi smiled softly, and Sakuya beamed. "Yeah, she might have a lot of people hanging onto her every word, but those things she said about Hayate and Isumi-chan made her some very dangerous enemies," the latter explained. "A couple of new kids -Hibino and Alamgir, I believe- had been present to see the exchange." She smiled. "They had been attending the academy long enough to know who Aika was, but not quite long enough for Love-Master to sink her claws into them and get 'em all corrupted with her second-hand bitch.

"When Aika finished her spiel -and she had a smile on her face the whole time!-" she growled darkly, before she shook her head, lightening up and continuing, "Isumi just about had a nervous breakdown. She fell to her knees and started sobbing inconsolably – I can't remember ever seeing her so upset, but Aika got right under her skin without even trying. Anyways Hibino, when she saw Isumi fall down, started shouting about the Love Master being an old hag who fed on the souls of children and made them cry because 'the taste of their innocent tears and the sound of their weeping get her off'–"

Maria looked at Sakuya incredulously. The Aizawa girl was practically cackling over all the crazy things that Hibino had said about Aika. It was one of the most poorly-kept secrets in local high society that Sakuya utterly loathed Aika for a number of reasons, most of them stemming from a highly critical review she had given a young Sakuya's _manzai_ routine a number of years back.

"Hey, don't ask me - I had nothing to do with it!" she defended, before adopting a thoughtful expression. "... But if I _had_, I probably would have coached her to add more references to her 'crusty, syphilitic vagina' and 'shriveled, saggy tits'. Regardless, no matter how farfetched some of her allegations were -though I have to admit, that to me they held a certain air of truth and credibility- most everyone in a hundred or two hundred meter radius soon heard that the Love Master had made Isumi Saginomiya cry."

"I see..." Maria nodded, "But what about the other student you mentioned, Alamgir-san, was it?"

"Well now, I _was_ getting to that, but since you're so impatient, well..." She cleared her throat and began. "While her buddy -Fumi-san- was running around yelling about the 'Soul-eating Hag-Master', Alamgir walked up to Aika, said something about spite being an ugly quality and GAVE HER THE MOST **EPIC. FUCKING. UPPERCUT. **_**EVER**_!" Sakuya exclaimed as tears of joy ran down her face. "Oh my God, you had to have been there, but it was the most beautiful damn thing I have ever seen! She floored the bitch with a single punch then stomped on her stomach. GLORIOUS!

"Now, I'll admit it here and now that I kissed her," she stated with nary a hint of embarrassment or regret. "There may have been some tongue on my part. But I think I restrained myself fairly admirably, all things considered. I mean, If she had been a guy I would have jumped her bones then and there, screwed her senseless, and carried her badass babies in my belly, to Hell with the consequences." There was more than a hint of awe and hero-worship in Sakuya's voice.

Then she chuckled, apparently recalling something humorous.

"Ah, and then... Then the Three Stooges -Izumi Segawa, Risa Asakaze, and Miki Hanabishi- heard about what happened." Her laughter grew louder, her eyes twinkling with glee. "After that it was only a short matter time until _everyone_ had heard the story of how the brave and valiant Alamgir-sama saved poor, innocent Isumi-chan from the evil, ugly hag using only her bare hands – most importantly, this news reached the ears of the Student Council Secretary and the Student Council President. The secretary, Chiharu Harukaze, **blacklisted** Aika from all extracurricular activities indefinitely, and she got the incident put directly onto her permanent record as 'emotional bullying of her juniors'." Sakuya made a sound like a cross between air escaping from a balloon and a 'squee'. "And the President, Hinagiku Katsura... well, first, she nicknamed Aika the Queen Bitch."

Sakuya paused for dramatic effect. "And then she told Ayasaki-sama."

Maria blinked. "Ayasaki-sama...? But, before... you've never..."

"Before, I was either role-playing with Isumi to build her confidence, or concealing it to keep people from asking unnecessary questions – but that's beside the point. Ayasaki-sama..." She had a dreamy look on her face. "Well, he was _pissed_ when he heard what Aika had said. I mean he was truly, genuinely ANGRY."

Maria tried and failed to imagine Hayate angry, but her mind simply could not wrap itself around such a seemingly alien concept. That boy had the patience of a saint and a heart of gold. The idea of him truly and genuinely furious was... Well, she was not actually sure, _what_, exactly, it was, but she knew it was something BIG. "What did he do?" she asked, remembering what Sakuya had said to keep her from running off half-cocked to avenge Isumi. "I hope he didn't get himself in trouble..."

Sakuya shook her head. "I don't know the specifics of what he did, personally, but I _do_ know that the next time Queen Bitch saw Hayate, she looked like she was about to either hurl in terror or bow down and worship him as a god. Quite possibly both." She shrugged. "As far as I can figure, he chewed her out so bad that it fried her bitch circuit. Now she's completely incapable of saying _anything_ negative about _anyone_ when he's around." She smiled blissfully. "Ah... If I had been there to see him tear into her, I'd probaby be Mrs. Sakuya Ayasaki right now... But luckily for Isumi and Nagi, I wasn't, so I'm not," she said, shifty-eyed.

Maria blanched. "Don't tell me you..."

"Only on paper," Sakuya reassured the maid. "I'll not go into details, but let's just say that someone received a considerably large sum of money in exchange for putting me down on the books as Ayasaki-sama's wife... Also, let's just say that I had Nagi listed as his wife as well in exchange for absolving him of his debt. And Isumi too, so she wouldn't kill us when she eventually found out."

"What."

"Yup. Me, Nagi, and Isumi are all legally married to Ayasaki-sama."

Maria sighed. "How on earth did you convince him -or your legal guardians- to consent to this?"

"It was a _very_ large bribe."

A groan. "So you used your money to trap Ayasaki-kun in a union he never agreed to -and likely can't back out of if that bribe was anywhere as generous as it sounds- for _what reason_, exactly?"

A coy grin.

From Isumi.

Maria reconsidered her question. "Actually, on second though maybe it's better if I don't know..."[**1**]

Isumi nodded earnestly.

Sakuya shrugged noncommittally.

Maria sighed loudly. _'I don't even know if all of this is true or not, but... if so, then is _that_ why milady was so ready to go through with Nishizawa-san's plan...? Because she was already legally married to Hayate?'_

Nagi yawned grumpily.

"Eh?-! Milady!" Maria nearly jumped six feet off the ground when her mistress, dressed in her pajamas and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, appeared behind her.

"... what'd I tell you about visitors...?" The young shut-in groused grumpily.

"To tell them to 'buzz off'," the maid recited with practiced ease.

"So why haven't you done that?"

"Because they're here to visit you milady..." Maria answered dismissively, "And on that note," she said, her tone growing serious, "Miss Aizawa and Miss Saginomiya have just finished telling me a most interesting story..." she remarked cheerfully. "... or should I call them Missus Aizawa-Ayasaki and Missus Saginomiya-Ayasaki?"

Nagi blinked. She knew that tone. It was the musical, 'too-happy-to-be-true' tone the young Maid used whenever she was extremely upset with someone. She had had enough experience with Maria's wrath that she could identify the warning signs from a mile away through ten miles of concrete. "I'll... be... goingbacktobedn-" she started, only for the maid to grab her using the dreaded "ear-lock": the secret ultimate grappling technique of matronly figures everywhere. Once you had been trapped in it, there was no escape. So, defeated, Nagi ceased her struggling and reluctantly surrendered herself to whatever punishment the maid had in store for her.

"So, Nagi, when were you and your friends planning to tell Hayate? Because I'm fairly certain that I would know if he knew. And I don't, so he doesn't."

The three girls fidgeted nervously. "We were... er, _are_... planning to tell him tonight, during our Post-Golden Week slumber party," Sakuya explained. "We have everything planned out so we can tell him-"

"Tell me what?" Hayate inquired from behind Sakuya and Isumi.

Sakuya coughed anxiously. "Er... um... uhhhh... we... were... hrm, tell... you..."

"That we hope Nagi losing her inheritance does not affect her too poorly," Isumi lied with suprising ease. Sakuya flashed her a grateful smile.

Hayate smiled. "Well, there was no need to plan for all that: it turns out that it won't be a problem any time soon."

Isumi shook her head. "Perhaps for now, but what will you do when Miss Nagi inevitably runs out of money? After all, with her non-existent work ethic and otaku spending habits (in addition to paying you and Maria your wages), she has a negative cash-flow, and eventually her savings will be depleted. And what then? When she has used up all of her money, what will you do? Nagi is soft. Poverty would destroy her fragile mind."

Nagi threateningly shook a fist in her friend's direction. She did not appreciate all this criticism of her spending habits, _thank-you-very-much_. She was not _that_ bad. Then, when she noticed the worried expression on Hayate's face, she nearly face-faulted.

_'Oh dear... Isumi-san has a point. The Sanzen'in fortune is great, I'm sure, but it cannot possibly last forever... and milady _is_ prone to frivolous purchases...'_

_'I don't believe it!'_ Nagi thought, dismayed and disappointed. _'He's actually worried I would use up all of my money?-! Gah, why doesn't anybody have any faith in my financial abilities?-!'_

* * *

Back at the Nishizawa family's apartment, Ayumu and Hinagiku were watching something on TV. They did not know the name of the show, nor what it was about. In all honesty, they were not even paying that much attention to it.

Instead, they were talking. Plotting. Ayumu was bouncing ideas off of her friend. Most of them were shot down in short order, for various reasons. Some were blatantly illegal, more were physically impossible, and most of them were simply just plain stupid.

But there were a few good ones, and one of the things that they both agreed was important was to find a way to keep a watchful eye on Hayate and protect his virtue until they were ready to take it themselves. Ayumu suggested having Nagi do it, since she had already gained the girl's support, but Hinagiku disagreed. She felt that the Sanzen'in heiress, while perhaps an ally, was too proud and willful to do that sort of work for them with significant reimbursement.

Once Ayumu admitted that, yeah, Nagi probably would not be the best choice, Hinagiku made a suggestion of her own.

"Eh? Chiharu?" Ayumu eyed her friend curiously, partly because she was not sure she actually knew who that was.

Hinagiku nodded. "Yes, she's the student council's secretary. She's very reliable and professional, and I have a feeling she would not mind the extra pocket money..." she trailed off. It was sort of an elephant in the room among the academy's student council that the secretary's father had lost his job a while back, forcing Chiharu to do odd jobs for extra cash, though it was never openly discussed.

Drawing her cellphone from her schoolbag, Hinagiku hit the speed dial for the secretary's personal number.

* * *

Back at Nagi's place, hidden behind some well-placed shrubberies outside the front door of the mansion, Sakuya's part-time maid "Haru" was kneeling down next to members of the Aizawa and Saginomiya security specialists. Despite the fact that her hair was mussed up and stuck full of twigs and leaves, her fetishistic maid uniform was, as always, spotless and tidy. That was one of the biggest lessons she had learned from anime about being a maid: the uniform must remain neat and undamaged, except for when fanservice is necessary.

Thankfully, her mistress was a (presumably) heterosexual young lady, which sharply reduced the potential number of situations where nudity or partial-nudity would be called for. Indeed, her job mainly entailed keeping her youthful charge out of trouble. Unfortunately, her charge was Miss Sakuya Aizawa (secretly technically Missus Sakuya Aizawa-Ayasaki), who had a talent for stirring up mayhem with her oftentimes coarse personality.

At first, when she saw her lady and Isumi end their impromptu comedy routine only to start whispering to each other. They had done this for a few minutes, before Isumi abruptly headbutted Sakuya. From there it had quickly elevated into an all out cat-fight complete with name-calling and tearing of clothes. Haru had been ready to jump in with the bodyguards and pull the two apart, until she noticed the thumbs down Sakuya had given them, signalling for them to not intervene.

Eventually, the stopped fighting and headed inside, and, well, now here she was.

Feeling something suddenly start vibrating against her chest, causing it to jiggle, she quickly undid the top few buttons on her blouse, withdrew the shaking device, and flipped it open to answer the call with one hand while deftly buttoning back up with the other; she calmly ignored the disappointed sounds being made by several of the male bodyguards. It was annoying having to stow such things between her cleavage while on the job, but her outfit had no pockets, and she herself did not have the benefit of hammerspace-access. "Hello, this is–"

_"Yo, Chiharu,"_ came the student council president's voice from the other end of the line.

"Ah," she said, easily shifting into her cool, clinical 'Chiharu-the-student-council-secretary' persona, "Hello, president."

The security personnel next to her looked at each other in shock. Not knowing about "Haru"'s true identity, they were also unaware her position on the student council of Hakuō Academy. So, taking a collective leap of logic usual only made by named characters, they concluded that she must be talking to either a company head or even a world leader. This misunderstanding would, over the course of Chiharu's employment with the Aizawa household, continue to grow and elevate "Haru's" reputation to the point of being made an adviser to the Aizawa family leader. On her advice, the Aizawa clan and its retainers would end up investing heavily in comic conventions and independent mangaka and game-designers, to resounding success, kicking off a renaissance in both these mediums and -over time- eventually _tripling_ the Aizawa family's assets. As a result, "Haru" would go on to become even more highly respected among the Aizawa family. She would eventually retire from being a maid at the age of twenty with an exceedingly generous stipend courtesy of her former employers. Chiharu Harukaze, meanwhile, would go on to attend various prestigious law and business schools, making an independent fortune as a direct competitor to the Aizawa clan by publishing the works of up-and-coming talents. By the age of thirty, she would become a legislator in the Japanese government, pushing for reform of both local and global economic policies.

But that's a story for another day.

"Do you need anything, president?" Chiharu inquired, completely oblivious to the misunderstandings she was causing.

_"Yeah, you could say that. I've got a job for you, if you're not too busy."_

"What kind of job?"

_"I want you to tail Hayate Ayasaki and let me know if you anything 'interesting' happens."_

"Oh? Interesting how? Is there something you want me to look for in particular?"

_"Er... yeah, something like that. Look, if any girls start coming on to Hayate, let me know and try to keep them from steali- I mean, _seducing _him. Can you manage that?"_

Chiharu sweat-dropped. "Uh, no, sorry. My schedule is much too busy for me to be able to do something like that."

She could _hear_ the student council president frown at this.

_"Okay, then. Plan B it is..."_ Chiharu heard Hinagiku mutter on the other end of the line. _"Could you at least head over the Sanzen'in estate and keep an eye on him for a little bit? I have... others..."_ the way she said the word unnerved and worried the part-time maid. _"But they won't be able to get there right away... an associate of mine had carelessly sent those unreliable buffoons on some ridiculous mission."_

Chiharu face-faulted. "If they're so incompetent, then why on earth do you plan to use them for such an important mission?-!" she snapped, causing her associates to eye her appraisingly and warily.

_"Because those Three Stooges have an impeccable sense of timing when it comes to interrupting romantic moments, especially those of the target in question."_

Realization dawned on "Haru" as all the blood abandoned her face for safer real estate down south. "Oh, _God_ no!" she exclaimed, horrified. "Those three are the **worst** possible choice for that mission! You know they can't do anything right!"

_"You're overreacting. I mean, all they have to do is follow him around. How could they possibly screw it up?"_

"By screwing _him_ up." Chiharu allowed herself a small victorious grin at the sound of Hinagiku choking on that remark.

_"B-buh! D-d-d-don't say such idiotic perverted things!"_ Hinagiku regained her composure and continued. _"I have a little more faith in them than that. I mean, Risa might tease him with innuendo, Miki might make licentious remarks, and Izumi might unintentionally say suggestive things, but none of them would actually do anything so serious with him out of nowhere. I mean, Miki is a transparently closeted schoolgirl-lesbian with a not-so-secret crush on me, Izumi is too shy to even **try** and do such things to him without serious goading, and even Risa, who is the most brash, most impulsive, and most likely one to seduce a guy out of nowhere, has not demonstrated any real interest in Hayate–"_

"She calls him the 'Air-headed Gigolo' and 'The Master of Getting a Maiden's Heart Beating'," Chiharu interjected bluntly. "This demonstrates that she is, at the very least, aware of the subject's reputation, and in all honesty it indicates at least a minimal amount of interest in him. _And_ as you yourself so helpfully pointed out, she is _just_ brash and impulsive enough to try something with him out of nowhere. As for the other two: the one would be with the two people most likely to goad her on, and the other... well, we don't really even have any concrete evidence regarding what 'side' she's on, and I certainly wouldn't put it past the subject to somehow be able to potentially 'turn' people..."

It is interesting how a conversation can sound without the proper context. Hinagiku and Chiharu knew full well what they were talking about, but to the others nearby it sounded like... well... Let us just say that "Haru"'s associates would quickly take to unironically calling her "Spy-master".

_"Gah!" _Hinagiku snapped, _"Do you have to pick apart every single one of my choices?-!"_

Chiharu grinned. "But of course, president. After all, you told me yourself the day you started that you wanted independently thinking individuals willing and able to correct you, not some button that says 'Yes sir,' when you press it."

A sigh. _"Okay, I set myself up with that one. But they're my second best option, with you unable to do it."_

"That's a pretty steep decline in quality from best to second-best."

_"Don't remind me."_ Hinagiku grumbled._ "But still,"_ she resumed confidently,_ "I trust them to behave with the utmost professionalism."_ Despite being on the other side of town, she was immediately aware of the cocked eyebrow this statement elicited from her right hand man (or schoolgirl/part-time-maid, in this case). _"Don't you even _start_!"_ she snapped warningly.

"Okay, then, it's your loss. In the meantime, I'll see what I can do." In all honesty, since she was already at the mansion, it would be no problem for her to keep an eye on Ayasaki for the time being. But she could not very well reveal that to the student council president without being asked why she was there, and then either having to tell a blatant lie or confess her secret. She knew Hinagiku was too shrewd by half to be deceived by any untruth she could weave on the spot, and she herself was too damn proud to 'fess up' concerning the nature of her part time job. So she used evasive tactics and side-stepped the subject so thoroughly and so completely that nobody would ever realize that there had even been a subject to side-step in the first place. Among her age group, Chiharu Harukaze was the master of political maneuvering, second in the subtlety of her plots and machinations only to the Queen Bitch Aika Kasumi herself.

Which only makes it that much more wasteful when she continued to squander the bulk of her powers on preventing her identity as the maid Haruko from slipping out and becoming public knowledge: primarily by doing everything she could to either discredit Aika or keep her silent (preferably both, in her opinion).

_"Thanks, Chiharu. You're a life saver."_ Hinagiku's smile was audible, and her tone was completely sincere. _"Later."_

"Yes, goodbye–"

_"Wait!"_

A new voice on Hinagiku's end stopped Chiharu before she could hang up. It sounded somewhat familiar, though she could not place the name of its owner.

* * *

Back at the Nishizawa apartment, sitting on the couch in front of the mildly outdated television, Ayumu was conspiratorially whispering something into Hinagiku's cellphone.

_"Hm..."_ Chiharu murmured thoughtfully. _"That's an... interesting... request. In fact, I must admit that I have had the same thought from time to time, so I'll do it for free."_

"And the pictures?"

_"I'll sell them to you at half the going market rate in exchange for exclusive access to the model and the full standard distribution rights."_

"Give us ten percent of the profits and..." Nishizawa paused. She blushed and giggled. "... and access to the model for recreational purposes, and I'll throw in full harem membership with all the benefits it entails."

_"Does that include... using the model for 'recreational purposes'?"_

"Yup, provided, of course, you don't do anything too serious before my partner and I have had the chance to break him in."

* * *

Back in the bushes outside the front door of Nagi's mansion, Chiharu was considering this offer. She had to admit, she had heard very impressive stories about the butler's abilities, and she had even seen him in action once or twice.

He was obviously eager to please, and very skilled at doing so. It did not hurt that he was easy on the eyes, nor that she had unofficial access to his medical files and, by extension, his measurements. She may not have much (or any) experience with the opposite sex outside of ordinary everyday interactions, but she had definitely heard anecdotes about such things from the older, more worldly maids employed by the Aizawa family. Adding all these factors together, she had to admit that Hayate seemed like a real winner, particularly in comparison with the few other boys she knew in her age group.

As she gave her answer, Chiharu could not help but wonder if Hayate was any good at giving massages...

* * *

_"It's a deal."_

This answer caused Nishizawa to smirk victoriously. She was amazed at how easily things were going thus far, and if things panned out the way she hoped, Chiharu would prove an invaluable asset in ensuring the successful completion of the scenario.

Humming softly to herself, she handed the phone back to Hinagiku. _'Now, who to recruit next...?'_

She pondered that question for a while.

* * *

Back (again) at the Sanzen'in estate, in a large guest room with a vaulted glass ceiling and beautiful wooden upholstery, Sakuya, Nagi, and Isumi were sitting in a circle. It was not the same room in which Wataru and Nagi had held their meeting earlier, for that one was still in a state of disrepair. Unlike other guest rooms, this one was sparsely decorated and minimally furnished, with only a couple of generically pleasant landscape paintings and a potted fern in the corner to spruce it up. There was but a single window in the room; it was of average size and shape, and it only looked out into the hallway, for this room was nowhere near the outside of the building. Next to the window was the door: polished maple with a brass doorknob, complete with a dial-like locking mechanism set into the handle. The floor was hardwood -no carpeting- and the four walls had elegantly carved molding.

Hayate and Maria had been dismissed to give the girls some privacy, although they were on standby to provide help should the need arise. Like, for example, if the girls were to run out of snacks or juice. In the meantime, Maria was catching up on her karaoke – she had not had the time or opportunity to indulge this passion for a few weeks, and the emotional build-up had been mounting to Lysistra Gambit levels of sexual frustration. And regular frustration. Basically, if Hayate had said one more word to her before she could get her fix, she would have either bitten his head off or shagged him dry. Luckily (or unluckily) for the indentured butler, he had been nowhere near Maria -having gone in a complete different direction- and so she managed to reach her musical sanctuary without incident.

Sitting on the floor between the three young girls was a _sakazuki_ of _Squelch's_ grape juice, a half-empty bag of _Akimichi Super!_ brand barbecue-flavored potato chips, and a bowl of popcorn as well as a few boxes and numerous discarded wrappers from an assortment of _Wee Wendy's _brand confections. They were sitting on personal mats, and they had three sleeping bags lying off to the side. Across from them was a flat screen plasma TV hanging on the far wall with a DVD player hooked up to it, along with an _X-Box 360_, a _Playstation 3_, and a _Nintendo Wii_ set side by side on standby with a handpicked selection of games for each system on a nearby shelf.

As per what had become an annual tradition among Nagi and her closest girlfriends, they were starting the festivities with fruit juice and junk food accompanied by gossip. The "Sanzen'in Post-Golden Week Sleepover" was a tradition for Nagi, Isumi, and Sakuya – one that had started as a way to cheer up the indolent Sanzen'in heiress after a long day of reacclimating to the stress of school, and evolved into an excuse for the three to indulge themselves (at least, more than usual) and goof off. Like all good slumber parties, the three pillars of the event were "junk food", "gossip", and "games". Unlike most slumber parties, however, the junk food tended to include such delicacies as candied chocolate-coated caviar and gold-dusted ice cream, and the gossip revolved around the stock market and Hayate (as opposed to just boys in general – for younger girls, about how gross and unpleasant they were; for older girls, about how cute and datable they were). The games at least, were mostly the same: truth or dare, twenty questions, _Super Ultra Mega Karate Kunoichi Fighter 3.5 Hyper Turbo Plus Version: The Path of Saruko: The Revenge - Special Extended Secret Director's Cut Edition: Now with State of the Art Jiggle Physics!_, and so on. You know, the usual.

This year, however, much of the early gossiping was devoted to the topic of Nagi's most unusual day.

"–and then he pops back in through the floor, steals a fifty thousand yen hat, and leaves."

Sakuya blinked. "Man, that's one helluva story. And you say you sent him after...?"

Nagi nodded.

Sakuya sniffled playfully. "Wah! My little cousin is all grown up!" she cooed jokingly, snatching the petite blonde up in her arms and crushing her in a devastating bear hug.

Their bonding session, however, was interrupted by Isumi. "About that man... Mouser–"

* * *

Somewhere on a massive freight ship in the Pacific, a certain unfortunate assassin felt the urge to shout that his name was Dire Rat, not Mouser. He managed to catch himself in time, however, as the frigate's crew was thus far unaware of his presence on-board. He wanted to keep it that way.

... but he could not hold it in for long. "IT'S DIRE RAT! NOT MOUSER! RAT! RAT! RAT! **NO MOUSE**! _**RAT**_!" he shouted in _Nihon-go_, unable to contain his erupting frustration at some unknown slight.

"_Hey, who is that!_" shouted one of the crew-members in a thick, nigh-incomprehensible Sicilian patois of Italian from his vantage point atop one of the taller crates, shining his flashlight on the Rat's face. He quickly clambered down and started walking briskly and purposefully towards the stowaway. His matted black hair and pronounced nose were dripping with sweat, and his heavy work clothes were dirty and stained with a blackish melange of grease and tar. He was moving with surprising speed, his large steel-toed boots thumping loudly on the metal floor.

The clatter of the man's feet was soon joined by that of several more coming from multiple directions. Dire Rat was surrounded, and they were quickly homing in on his location.

Well, shit.

So much for stealth.

* * *

"–said that there was a loophole in Mister Sanzen'en's contest?" the polite Saginomiya heiress concluded, unaware that a sudden momentary shift in narrative focus had interrupted her interrogative.

Nagi nodded. "Yeah. Something about, how, if the rules indicated that whoever managed to steal that necklace and either destroy it or keep it the away from me for twenty-four hours would get the inheritance, then by breaking the stone myself _I_ became the winner of the contest."

"I see..." Isumi muttered. "How cunning."

"Yeah. It's a good thing I realized this as soon as I did, though, 'cause I wouldn't put it past that old geezer to try and take the inheritance from me anyways out of spite."

"So, wait," Sakuya held up her index finger, "Let me see if I've got this straight: you hired a top-level assassin to work for you -for peanuts- and then sent him to shake down Gramps to keep him from taking you out of the will, just in case?"

"Yup," Nagi said with a self-satisfied grin.

"I'M SO PROUD OF YOU!" Sakuya exclaimed, plowing her cute little cousin into the ground with a flying tackle-hug. "And I know just what to do for you, too." She withdrew a _harisen_ from hammerspace, grinned smugly, took in a deep breath, and bellowed:

"YO! AYASAKI-SAM-er, SAN!" she called out, verbally beckoning the bishi-butler, "COME HITHER!" she hollered in a jestingly pseudo-sophisticated voice.

Now, Hayate Ayasaki was talented in many areas. But one of his greatest -and most understated- abilities was his astounding sense of timing. While it often got him into trouble with the various girls he had walked in on while changing or in otherwise compromising positions, it also enabled him to be nearby whenever someone was about to call for him, allowing him to instantly come to their side. This, of course, had led many individuals over the years to believe that he possessed the power of flash step, body flicker, teleportation, or apparation. But no, as it was, Hayate Ayasaki simply had a supernatural sense of timing.

So it should come to no surprise that, when he heard Sakuya call for him, he happened to be walking past the window looking into the guest room where she and the others were located. Without a second thought, he immediately pushed open the window, dove though it, carefully and quietly returned it to the closed position, and dashed over to the Aizawa heiress all in less than a second. The bow wave from his movement shifted the air like a gust of wind, causing his skirt to flip and flutter and give the dumbstruck girls a clear glimpse of pink strawberry patterned panties that did not look the least bit comfortable for him...

_'Wait, what?'_ was the thought of two of the girls at the sight of Hayate in a completely impractical -but very sexy- "French-maid" uniform. The skirt was enticingly short, barely reaching past his thighs at the most, and the blouse was frilly enough to distract from the fact that he had the chest of, well, a teenage boy.

Sakuya, however, was not so stunned. Her slapstick senses kicking into action, she did what she was born to do.

SMACK. Upside the head.

"What the heck!" she shouted with exuberance. There was a clear tone of confidence in her voice. She did not care how or why Hayate was dressed as he was. She did not care that his appearance gave her a rather pleasing tightness in her chest. All she cared was that he was already prepared for a rousing comedy act.

Under her voice, she added:_ 'You truly are a worthy husband, Ayasaki-sama, if you have such a feel for comedy...!'_

"Ow! Why did you hit me? It's not my fault I'm dressed like this! Maid-san was very scary!" Even though he could probably take a truck to the face and keep standing, Hayate did not like getting hit outside of a fight, and as a rule he did not like fighting little girls, especially if they were his lady's friends and/or relatives.

Then it registered in his brain that the person hitting him was _Sakuya_. So he grinned and chirped: "It wasn't my idea! Scary Maid-san 'maid' me wear home-'maid' maid-clothes!" he punned.

Nagi groaned. Palm met face.

Isumi watched with bated breath, eagerly waving a miniature flag bearing Hayate's name in bright, bold lettering along with a stylized depiction of his face.

And Sakuya swung.

SMACK.

"What the heck?-! That was terrible!"

"I guess you aren't a 'fan' of word-play?" Hayate said nervously, rubbing his head where he had been hit.

SMACK.

"Argh! What the heck! You suck!"

Hayate held up his index finger and waggled it in Sakuya's face disapprovingly. "Uh-uh-uh~! No 'heck'-ling~!"

SMACK.

"WHAT THE HECK!" Her eyes were bloodshot and twitching.

"'Eye' think you might need to an eye-doctor about that. 'Eye' hear they give 'eye'ce-cream to well-behaved patients. 'Eye'-'eye' captain, 'Eye' do believe that that be the best course of action, yaaaarrr~!" Hayate said, suddenly dressed in a frilly pirate costume complete with an eye-patch and a fake parrot. Then he was back in the maid outfit a second later.

Sakuya roared. She was not at all pleased with Hayate's terrible puns. Or his lousy, uninspired pirate imitation, for that matter. Even if she did have a thing for him after what he had done to Aika, she simply could not endure this continued mockery of good humor. She leaped, knocking the bluenette butler to the floor. Straddling his waist and pinning him to the floor, she rained blow after blow on him with her slapping fan.

SMACK. SMACK. SMACK.

SMACK. SMACK. RIP. SMACK.

SMACK. SMACK.

SMACK. RIP. SMACK. SMACK.

SMACK. SMACK. RIP.

SMACK.

RIP. SMACK. SMACK.

**RRRRRIIIIIIP!**

SMACK. SMACK.

SMACK. SMACK.

SMA–

Suddenly, Sakuya noticed that the maid-dressed butler had grown erubescent in the cheeks. She heard the faint sound of fabric rustling against skin. Then she felt something warm -VERY warm- and _**hard **_pressing against her naked thigh through one of the larger tears in her pants. Then she noticed that she could feel the open air against her chest.

It felt a little chilly to her.

Looking down, she turned even redder than Hayate.

It seemed that the vigorous motion from the activity of beating Hayate senseless for his awful word-play had been too much for the last holdout threads of fabric in her blouse, causing them to fail and to give way. This, in turn, had created a large hole in the chest area of that article of clothing, before it fell apart completely – along with her similarly tattered bra. Her remarkably mature breasts had been bared for all (but especially Hayate Ayasaki-sama) to see.

And he apparently **liked** what he saw, if his reaction down there was anything to go by.

Nagi, seeing her servant's dangerously short skirt get lifted up, noted from her vantage point behind Sakuya that Li'l Hayate had slipped out of his pink prison to rub against the nice young lady who was making him feel so happy and invigorated. The blonde heiress was uncertain whether to sit back and enjoy the view or push Sakuya off of their 'technically-husband' and take a ride herself. At least, she was until she remembered her conversation with Hamster-chan.

_"See?" Ayumu smirked sweetly at the younger girl, "Even your maid agrees with me: you're repressing Hayate-kun's sexuality, preventing him from growing up into a well-adjusted adult. As if he needs any _more_ issues!" she added the last part under her breath, directing a disapproving glare at the offending heiress._

_Nagi sniffled. "But... I'm not emotionally ready to make love to him..." the thirteen year-old whimpered, looking uncharacteristically shy as a Single Glistening Teardrop™ fell from her eyes to the ground._

_Nishizawa smiled kindly on the outside, while on the inside she was going _'Squee!'_ at how adorably vulnerable Nagi looked. "Don't worry," she whispered, tenderly putting a finger to Nagi's lips, "I'll break Hayate in for you, and when your old enough I'll even give advice on how to please him."_

_Nagi stared up at Ayumu with big, watery eyes. Sniffling cutely, the petite blonde nodded her head. "... th-thank you..." she whispered gratefully. For some reason, Hamster-chan looked much more mature and beautiful, and she seemed to be sparkling while cherry blossoms fell through the air around her. However, Nagi could not care less as she nuzzled the older girl's bosom._

_"I know," Ayumu said soothingly, stroking the younger girl's hair even as her face broke out into a victorious grin._

So she shrugged and decided to wait and see what happened. After all, she doubted the Hamster would leave her crush unprotected. At the very least, there was her little 'love-insurance plan'. [**2**]

Isumi, standing next to Nagi, was filming these highly intriguing proceedings with a hi-tech digital camcorder. Liking the footage she was getting, she gave a thumbs up and zoomed in on the star of the show.

Sakuya, while all this was going on, was torn between continuing to beat Hayate for his terrible puns or riding him like a bull at the rodeo. On the one hand, those puns had been fucking horrible. On the other hand, she was close enough to _smell_ Hayate -whose musky yet fresh scent was making it impossible to think of anything other than various positions she had heard of that she wanted to try out- and his fifth limb was pressing against an extremely sensitive spot on her thigh and felt so nice against her skin...

Smack.

"What the heck," Hayate chirped gently, lightly tapping Sakuya on the forehead with the paper fan she that had not even realized was no longer in her hand.

He was smiling sweetly, and his blush had subsided to a faint hint of light pink tingeing his cheeks. His voice was soft, yet she could feel strength behind it – strength even apart from the smooth, well-toned muscles she felt in him beneath her body. It was a strength of will and personality. Like a silver-back or an alpha dog, everything about Ayasaki made him seem innately dominant over her, even as he lay there pinned underneath her smaller, weaker frame. Something in his voice, in the way his muscles coiled and tensed even as he caressed her cheeks so tenderly, made her want to submit herself to him completely and utterly.

Primal instincts as old as humanity and even older still were screaming at her to present herself, to rub against him, to hold him, to love him... The voices drowned out all other things. The only sensations she knew were of Hayate: the sight of his visage so handsome and lovely, the touch of his skin against hers so warm and gentle, the scent of his sex filled with tension and lust, the sound of his voice musical and rich, the taste of his lips so sweet and so _right_. She was not thinking, but she did not care about that. All that mattered to her then and there was to complete him and her – to become as one flesh and know him biblically.

But before they could unite in body and mind, a sound broke through her muddled consciousness. With the clarity like crystal, it pierced through the dense, suffocating fog of arousal and desire, bringing her back to the real world.

It was the sound of clapping, oddly rhythmic with a vaguely familiar pattern. _'They liked it!'_ was her first thought, _'They liked it! They really liked it! They really liked my– no, OUR act!'_ Tears of joy came to her eyes, though she did not move from her compromising position. She had been momentarily stunned by the sound, but the presence of Hayate passive and vulnerable beneath her was too enticing to ignore for long.

At least, until she heard the singing.

"_Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man._

_ Bake me a cake as fast as you can;_

_ Pat it and prick it and mark it with B,_

_ Put it in the oven for baby and me._

_ Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man._

_ Bake me a cake as fast as you can;_

_ Roll it up, roll it up;_

_ And throw it in a pan!_

_ Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man_."

Sitting a few feet behind Nagi and Isumi, the Three Stooges of Hakuō Academy were playing a curious, three-way variant of _patty cake_.

Sakuya face-faulted.

Hayate chuckled.

Nagi groaned.

Isumi continued filming. This, of course, caught the attention of Miki Hanabishi.

"Hey, whatchya filmin'?" Miki inquired casually, looking over Isumi's shoulder to spy on the camcorder's view-screen.

"Hayate-sama's penis."

"Scandalous," Miki remarked with a mischievous smirk.

"Eh?" Izumi Segawa popped up behind Miki, looking over her shoulder over Isumi's shoulder. "Hayata-kun did what?" Then she saw the scene on the view-screen, which was zoomed in on what was protruding from the fetish-maid miniskirt the butler was wearing.

Her eyes widened.

Her face flushed radiant crimson.

And she squealed, a high sharp sound. Partly in shock... but there was something else... Something more in the undertones of the wordless utterance. A hint of something husky, of a _woman's _voice beginning to blossom in the girl's throat, and the sound appealed to something in Hayate's primitive, lower brain.

And it hurt. But it was not an active hurt like a cut or a scrape. It was more of a passive hurt, the ache of something fighting its way out from his loins. And it burned and aced and throbbed and,_ by **God**_, it demanded release.

Hayate moaned. The shame and self-loathing that came to him with the realization of what was happening only made things harder for him.

"Ooo~ooh!" Risa Asakaze slid up behind Izumi. She looked over Izumi's shoulder over Miki's shoulder over Isumi's shoulder into the camcorder's view-screen. "Niii~ice," she said appreciatively. "I mean, daaayuuuum, man. If Hayata-kun really wanted to, he could probably do that professionally, and he'd make fucking a fortune-"

"I think you mean 'a fucking fortune'," Miki interjected.

"I know what I said. But either way you say it, with a body like that he'd go _all the way to the top_."

"Indeed," agreed Isumi. [**3**]

Sakuya, meanwhile, glared at the girls. "Goddamned philistines. They wouldn't know good comedy if it bit them on the ass." Then she slowly looked down at Hayate, her face shadowed dramatically and a downright _evil_ glint in her eyes...

Hayate felt himself gulp nervously, wilting in fear – to the rather vocal disappointment of Isumi and the Three Stooges.

Nagi simply grumbled under her breath.

* * *

_Omake: So What if Real Musicians are Supposed to Suck at _Guitar Hero_?_

"Hey, I just had a thought!"

"What was it?" Hinagiku looked over at Nishizawa, who was now dressed in a cute and casual sweatshirt and skirt combo. They were at a karaoke bar (Hina was paying) waiting for Nishizawa's surprise guest to show up.

"We should totally invite your sister to join the har–"

"NO."

Nishizawa sweat-dropped. "Wh-why not?" she asked nervously.

Hinagiku held up three fingers. "Three reasons. One: she's an unreliable drunk. Two: she's several years older than him, so it would be creepy. And three: we're sisters – we may share everything else, but I will be DAMNED if we share the same man."

Ayumu chuckled anxiously. "Heheheh... Well, then, I suppose you probably won't like who I invited..."

Hinagiku's eyes widened in horror. "_**NO!**_" She screamed dramatically, dropping to her knees and grabbing Nishizawa by her shoulders.

The door to their room opened up. "'Sup, bitches," Yukiji Katsura casually greeted her little sister and her little sister's friend. She walked to the newest addition to the karaoke bar: a _Guitar Hero_ imitator. Sweeping the guitar-shaped controller up in her arms and selecting a song, she began.

Hinagiku swore.

The opening chords of _I'm Shipping up to Boston_ began to pump through the speakers. Smirking, Yukiji put on a pair of sunglasses. "Let's rock."

And she did.

* * *

[**1**]: Interestingly, while doing some research on Japanese Law for this exchange, I found that, curiously, the age of consent for sexual activity in Japan is apparently thirteen (13) while the age of consent for marriage is eighteen (18) for men and sixteen (16) for women and that even then you need a parent's (or guardian's, presumably) permission to get hitched if you are under the age of majority (20). Law is so wonderfully obtuse, is it not?

[**2**]: This is just a little pun (and maybe a future plot point? I dunno yet). It's a 'love insurance plan', but it could also be read as a 'love-ensurance plan' – that is to say, it's both a plan to ensure love and make things work out, and a plan to insure love in case things _don't_ work out.

Maybe.

But mostly it's just me being a word-nerd.

[**3**]: That _'make fucking a fortune' _ bit is one of my more favorite exchanges in this chapter, even more so because my inspiration for it came from a typo: I had originally meant for Risa to say _'make a fucking fortune'_ but I jumbled the word order while typing, getting _'make fucking a fortune_'. Now, I suppose I could have put _'make a fortune fucking'_ instead, since it is a more logically constructed statement with greater coherence that would get across the same point. But I'm stubborn and at least mildly insane, so screw that. **  
**

* * *

**A/N: I must admit that I honestly don't like Aika Kasumi that much. As an individual, her scheming, manipulative, two-faced personality is the sort that just rubs me the wrong way, and she is the kind of person I simply cannot stand. To the extent that, when writing her, my mind subconsciously amplifies her bitchy-traits by ten levels of magnitude, resulting in a character who is a complete bitch, but in an almost refreshingly straightforward way. And yes, despite all that, I have in fact set it up for her to possibly eventually become part of the harem. Because, clearly, I hate myself.**

**And I could swear that somewhere in the manga, Sakuya says she dislikes Aika. If I'm wrong then, eh, *shrug* I can live with that. In addition: yes, I did, in fact, retroactively (in this divergent AU, at least) make Sakuya hero worship Hayate and Aika regular worship(/fear) him. By the way, how many Noodle Incidents does that make by now in this fic?  
**

**And, again, the stats prior to updating: **

_Hayate the Combat Butler - Rated: T - English - Humor/Adventure - Chapters: 10 - Words: 42,331 - Reviews: 21 - Updated: 7-31-11 - Published: 2-27-10 - Ayumu & Hayate_

**And, additionally:**

_Hits: 4,978  
_

_Favorites: 16  
_

_Alerts: 21  
_

_C2s:_ _1_

**Chapter Added: **_8-5-11 [August 5, 2011]_**  
**


	12. Omake: Keeping it in the Family

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: I'm making fairly good progress on _Chapter Ten: The Revenge of the Terrifying "Cat-ears" Mode!_, but some of the content in it is rather racy. As the last few reviewers have told me, the content of the story has _really_ been pushing the limits of the 'T' rating, so I have set up a poll in my profile to help decide whether or not to raise the rating of the fic. So go vote and let your voice be heard!**

**The next chapter has been mostly written up, with the exception of a few scenes. I will still need to proofread it, of course, and do the usual touching up, so it will likely be a few days before the chapter is ready for uploading (I probably would be farther along if my medication hadn't more or less ran out a for about a week, but without being properly drugged up, I cannot trust myself to do any sort of good writing or really to do or focus on anything aside from lie in bed feeling sorry for myself [Depression and ADHD are a bitch of a combination, especially in tandem with Asperger's. Fuck, I hate mental illness]). Anyways, here's an omake I'd written for the next chapter to tide you over.**

**_And remember to check out the poll in my profile!_  
**

* * *

**Omake:**

**Keeping it in the Family**

_ 'Y'know,'_ Risa Asakaze thought to herself in the middle of the surprisingly laborious task of sweeping out her family's shrine, _'there are times when I really hate this job… Why should _I_ have to do this? Because my ancestors did it before me? Because this shrine has been in the care of the Asakaze family for generations? No,'_ she shook her head as she idly leaned on her broom, frustration evident in her expression, _'It's because my grandfather is a stubborn old geezer!'_

"This is so unfair…" she grumbled, her normally cheerful attitude having been soured by a string of bad luck that had begun with being unable to find a single matching pair of socks and ended with somehow accidentally misplacing her underwear (even the spares she had brought just in case) after swimming in gym class. Her grandfather hounding her about incomplete chores the second she arrived home had simply been the proverbial last straw, causing Risa to snap at him, which ended up provoking an escalating argument that reached a crescendo with the elderly man roaring at his granddaughter and **ordering** her to finish her chores. "Stupid geezer. This would be so much easier if that obstinate bastard would just hire some part-time shrine maidens..."

She paused, imagining how some of her schoolmates might do in her place...

_CRASHSMASHBANG!_

"_WAH! OH NUUU~U! WHAT WILL I DO?-! I'M GOING TO GET FIRED AND ARRESTED AND I'LL GO TO JAIL AND GET TRADED BY MY CELLMATE FOR A PACK OF CIGARETTES AND BE MADE A BUTCH BITCH'S PRISON BITCH AND I'LL END UP SHANKING HER AND GET INDUCTED INTO A GANG AND...! AND...! AND...!"_

_ "Eep! I'm so sorry! It wasn't Fumi, it was me! I'm so sorry, Risa! Please forgive me! I don't wanna be your grampa's gimp!"_

_"... It was Izumi."_

_ "Honestly, Hanabishi, what kind of idiots do you take us for? We saw you right there when it happened. We __**know**__ it was you."_

_ "Calm down, Chiharu-san. They're always this way: you know as much."_

_ "What the heck, don't act so high and mighty, dummy! You're the one who was practicing your kendo moves on the gong!"_

_ "Shut it, Sanzen'in, unless you want me to shove this _bokken_ where the sun don't shine."_

_ "Nyeehh~! I'd like to see you try, pinky!"_

_ SMASHBANG! CRASHCLANG!_

_ "OW! THAT HURT, YOU BITCH!"_

_ "...AND I'LL MESS UP AT MY PAROLE HEARING AND MY SENTENCE WILL GET EXTENDED AND...! AND...! AND...!" _

Risa shuddered, and she shook her head. _'On second thought, maybe things are better off the way they are...'_

* * *

**A/N: As a bit of trivia, I have had the first two paragraphs of this omake written up for months. I was stuck on it for the longest time, so I kept pushing it back in favor of other omakes. **

**[P.S.: The speaking characters in the flashback in the omake, if you can't figure it out, are:**

**1. "WAH! OH NUUU~U! WHAT WILL I DO?-!..." ~ Fumi Hibino  
**

**2. "Eep! I'm so sorry! It wasn't Fumi, it was me!..." ~ Izumi Segawa  
**

**3. "... It was Izumi." - Miki Hanabishi  
**

**4. "Honestly, Hanabishi, what kind of idiots do you take us for?..." ~ Chiharu Harukaze  
**

**5. "Calm down, Chiharu-san..." ~ Hinagiku Katsura  
**

**6. "What the heck, don't act so high and mighty..." ~ Nagi Sanzen'in  
**

**7. "Shut it, Sanzen'in, unless..." ~ Hinagiku Katsura  
**

**8. "Nyeehh~! I'd like to see you try, pinky!" ~ Nagi Sanzen'in  
**

**9. "OW! THAT HURT, YOU BITCH!" ~ Nagi Sanzen'in  
**

**10. "...AND I'LL MESS UP AT MY PAROLE HEARING AND..." ~ Fumi Hibino]**

**Chapter Added: **_8-13-11 [August 13, 2011]_**  
**


	13. Revenge of the Terrifying Catears Mode

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: This chapter... this chapter had to be gone over a number of times, mainly to refine certain stretches of dialogue and expand on the descriptions in several places, as the latter has long been one of the weaknesses in my writing. It also took longer to do so than expected as I got rather caught up with working on the rough draft of the chapter after this one, getting several pages of material written up (albeit on paper, which makes it somewhat less impressive as my handwriting is rather sloppy and large), as well as the problems mentioned in the previous Omake and I must say that a certain segment of what I've written for that chapter so far is rather dark with a bit of goriness. I won't give anything away, except that Nagi is rather desensitized to (imaginary) violence.**

**WARNING: ****I only got one vote on the poll over whether or not to raise the rating (for _Yes, I want lemons and swearing and gore, damnit!_), but this chapter has a very liberal amount of swearing and it's not likely to get any better any time soon, so I figure: Eh, might as well. I'll still keep the poll up for shits and giggles (and to gauge whether or not I should keep the rating up and go all out or turn it back and dial down on the sex, violence, and profanity). It honestly amazes me that I can be as vulgar as I am when writing, since in person I rarely ever swear (out loud) and tend to be rather quiet. Except when I'm talking, in which case -as I've often been told over the course of my life- I can get rather loud without realizing it. I also have a fairly decent singing voice (bass, with a relatively wide range), but that is neither here nor there.  
**

**This chapter is almost definitely the main reason for me raising the rating to 'M' before updating, as it contains a fairly vulgar rant from a certain teacher, as well as pushing the boundary of almost-but-not-quite-sex nearly as far as I logically can. Miki, it would seem, is ****very**** good at foreplay... Also, like most teenagers, the Three Stooges do not have the best grasp of political correctness. Or logic, for that matter.**

**DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions of the various characters in this fic are not necessarily agreed with or shared by the author (EvilFuzzy9) and any resemblance to real people, living or dead is wholly coincidental (except when it's not). ... ... ... Oh, yeah, and _Hayate the Combat Butler_ belongs to Kenjirō Hata and whoever else he feels like sharing that particular pie with. I'm just a jobless sort-of-college-student who really needs a fucking job but, alas, cannot find one. As Hata himself (or at least some of his characters) has said (or possibly quoted): "This decade is truly the Ice Age of Employment." **

**Bleh.  
**

* * *

**Last time on 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

* * *

_ "Ooo~ooh!" Risa Asakaze slid up behind Izumi. She looked over Izumi's shoulder over Miki's shoulder over Isumi's shoulder into the camcorder's view-screen. "Niii~ice," she said appreciatively. "I mean, daaayuuuum, man. If Hayata-kun really wanted to, he could probably do that professionally, and he'd make fucking a fortune-"_

_ "I think you mean 'a fucking fortune'," Miki interjected._

_ "I know what I said. But either way you say it, with a body like that he'd go _all the way to the top_."_

_ "Indeed," agreed Isumi._

_ Sakuya, meanwhile, glared at the girls. "Goddamned philistines. They wouldn't know good comedy if it bit them on the ass." Then she slowly looked down at Hayate, her face shadowed dramatically and a downright _evil_ glint in her eyes..._

_ Hayate felt himself gulp nervously, wilting in fear – to the rather vocal disappointment of Isumi and the Three Stooges._

_ Nagi simply grumbled under her breath._

* * *

**Now, for the next installment of 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

.

.

.

**Chapter Ten:**

**The Revenge of the Terrifying "Cat-ears Mode"!**

At _Illustrious Makinami Karaoke_ (a modestly successful "hip" establishment best known for being one of the few places to consistently keep up with the constantly changing world of music and entertainment) in one of the cheaper rooms, Ayumu Nishizawa found herself staring unabashedly at the verdette teacher Yukiji Katsura as the older woman continued to utterly dominate at the off-brand _Guitar Hero_ and/or _Rock Band_ imitator-style simulator a few feet from the standard karaoke machine, her mouth agape.

_'That... Was... AWESOME!'_ she thought giddily. With a squeal, she entered fangirl mode. She gushed and giggled over the elder Katsura, complimenting her talent. She cooed and cheered, going "Ooh!" and "Ah!" every time the woman executed a combo _just right_, racking up massive bonus points and eliciting one of two dozen pre-recorded audience cheers each time she did so.

Hinagiku, on the other hand, was dumbstruck. She stared at her older sister, watching her flawlessly nail every note on the guitar simulator. She could not believe it. It had been so long since she had last heard her big sis play. Unbelievably, she had somehow actually forgotten just how _good_ Yukiji was.

The christmas cake in question, seeing the approving reactions, grinned smugly. "So, do I rock, or _do I fucking rock_?"

The two younger girls nodded wordlessly. They were too awestruck by Yukiji's display of musical-simulation prowess to do anything else. Well, aside from cheering along with the virtual audience, that is.

"Wow, that was impressive~!" came a voice from outside the door, catching the trio's attention. Looking through the glass were a pair of red eyes on a girlish face framed by medium-length light blue hair. Her cheeks were dimpled with a wide, luminescent smile.

Hinagiku's first impression, upon noticing their unexpected audience, was something along the lines of: _'Wo-wow... there's ... something... about that girl... She has a destitute look about her, and yet... and yet, for some reason, I feel like I should be honored to meet her... Odd, that.'_

Ayumu looked at the girl her age, and felt her cheeks glow bright red. _'Whoah, she's cute, and she has such an intriguing air about her, too... I'd say she's a dead ringer for Hayate-kun, apart from the eyes.'_ She cocked her head to the side, casually contemplating the possibly very sexy implications of this.

Yukiji however, was mostly unperturbed. Stealing a quick glance at the person complimenting her through the window in the room's door, she winked and held up a pinky. "I'm a total rock star, nyaa~ah," she boasted jocularly, causing the girl to giggle.

"Ah, I wish I could say the same..." the girl on the other side of the door said with a sigh. "But, to be honest, I can't imagine that just being able to play _Guitar Hero_ -or a knockoff of it- would actually qualify you to be a rock star, in all seriousness," she stated bluntly, still sounding as syrupy-sweet as when she had complimented the eldest Katsura girl only moments earlier.

The smile on Yukiji's face disappeared, and her face became shadowed. Her edges of her lips bent downwards, and her temples began throbbing warningly. "Oy," she growled, glowering menacingly at the girl, "Who the hell d'ya think you are, telling me that shit? I ain't just good on simulators, y'know. I'm a Grade A, hundred percent, pro-quality rocker!" she snarled.

Hinagiku and Nishizawa had to physically restrain the furious teacher from launching herself at the blue-haired girl - who, for her part, quickly made herself disappear, when she realized just how pissed the elder Katsura really was at her for that careless remark.

Struggling against the surprisingly strong combined grip of her sister and her sister's friend, Yukiji hissed, grumbling promises of painful retribution for that presumptuous blue-haired trollop. "Grrr...!" she growled, "If I ever see that brat's face again, I'll... I'll... ... I... ... ..." Yukiji trailed off, blankly staring, mouth agape, at something above the door. Hinagiku and Ayumu, curious, followed her gaze.

Then they too had their jaws drop.

Hanging above the door was a promotional poster. Pictured on it was a teenage girl with red eyes and short light-blue hair; she was dressed in an eccentrically _kawaiisa_ outfit. In big, bold yellow print was the heading _**'LUCA SUIRENJI – TEEN IDOL SENSATION!'**_.

As one, the trio blinked.

"... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... _**EHHHHHHHHH?-!-?-!**_"

_'O-M-F-G!'_ Nishizawa squealed inwardly. _'She looks just like Hayate-kun AND she's a teen idol?-! That settles it, if I ever see her again, I'm totally inviting her into the harem!'_ She pumped her fist to punctuate this thought. Her conviction and determination were clearly evident.

Hinagiku shook her head in disbelief, thinking: _'So that girl (Ruka? Luca?) really is a big deal, then... I wonder what her work is like? Does Hayate like the kind of music she performs? Is it the kind of music __I__ would like? Might this Suirenji girl's music prove a common interest between myself and Hayate? Or Nishizawa-san, for that matter? If I suggested it, would Hayate go to a concert of hers with me and Nishizawa? Would it be a date? Would it be romantic?'_ and so on, and so forth, _et cetera_.

Yukiji was the only one unimpressed by this anything, it only further enraged her.

"That fucking jail-bait bimbo!" she snarled furiously. "Who the fuck does she think she is, telling me I don't have any talent?-!" she ranted, frothing at the mouth. "Some mass-produced manufactured pretty princess barbie doll dares question MY talent?-! Some brainless saccharine media whore thinks she's better than me?-!" Opening the door and leaning out into the hallway, she hollered: "BITCH, _PLEASE_! YOU WOULDN'T KNOW TALENT IF IT BENT YOU OVER A TABLE AND FUCKED YOU UP THE ASS! MY WORK IS EDGY! IT HAS _MEANING_! YOU DON'T KNOW THE FIRST! **FUCKING**! _**THING**_! ABOUT MUSIC! SO PISS OFF AND GO CRY TO YOUR PRODUCERS! IN A FEW YEARS THEY'LL JUST TOSS YOU ASIDE FOR SOMEONE WHO'S YOUNGER AND PRETTIER AND HAS A BETTER RACK! AND ANOTHER THING—**HEY, GET YOUR HANDS OFFA ME, ****DAMNIT****!**" she snapped at the karaoke bar's security personnel, who proceeded to casually let go of her and were now standing in the doorway, daring her to make their collective day.

"We're sorry, miss, but you're causing a scene," said the first bouncer, a pale, lanky fellow with bluish-white hair, tapered upside down triangular tattoos under his eyes, and the face of a delinquent. The rehearsed politeness of his speech belied an underlying threat.

"Yeah, what he said," the second bouncer -a muscular, swarthy thuggish sort with a triple-strap eye-patch over his right eye, tied back brown hair, no shirt, and tribal tattoos along his torso- nodded in agreement. His hands went to his waist, where he carried a wooden sword, a well-worn oriental waster of impressive weight.

The first one, Guard One, mimicked his partner's action, caressing the handle of his own _bokken_, hanging at his side in a plainly utilitarian sheath. He grinned. "C'mon, you crazy broad. You're leaving this place, one way or another. If it has to be on stretcher..." He shrugged nonchalantly. "... then so be it."

Yukiji, glowering mutinously at the establishment's hired muscle, simply raised her hands up to eye level and flipped them a patented 'double-birdie'. "Up yours, motherfuckers."

* * *

[Narrio Wakamator: "A few minutes later, in the alley behind _Illustrious Makinami Karaoke_."]

* * *

"Unngh..." Yukiji groaned miserably, her legs sticking out of an upright trash can. "Okay, I'll admit that was _not_ one of my best ideas... Ow," she winced, feeling the welts and bruises all over her body at the spots where she had been struck by the two guards' wooden swords. The ripe, rancid, stomach-churning stench of unidentifiable garbage and refuse pervaded her nostrils, overloading her olfactory nodes and making her want to hurl.

Her disgust with the details of her current situation overcoming the pain in her limbs, Yukiji began flailing her legs side to side, slightly tipping the receptacle to and fro. Doing this, she eventually managed to tip the can over, allowing her to back out of it.

Freedom.

She took a deep whiff of the comparatively fresh air, gagging slightly at the vile odor clinging to her clothes along with miscellaneous debris and chunks of spoiled food. Her hair was dripping wet, she noticed, with... well, it was definitely _some _sort of liquid, though the verdette was reasonably certain she did **not** want to know what, exactly, it was. Doubtless it was something nasty and unpleasant and utterly revolting.

With a sigh, she plucked a banana peel off of her face and did her best to brush the putrid contaminants from her person. She had been absolutely humiliated in there. Despite ostensibly having had the tactical advantage with the door acting as a bottleneck, the two bouncers had more than compensated with their (highly effective, as it turned out) wooden swords. They had beaten her like a red-headed stepchild: easily and thoroughly.

The door opened, and Hinagiku and Ayumu stepped out, escorted by the guards in question. They were chatting amicably amongst themselves, Yukiji noted bitterly. The two girls had cooperated fully, apologizing for her behavior and doing their best to smooth over the whole fiasco.

"I apologize for my older sister's behavior." Hinagiku said with a bow, her tone prim and proper. "She's a careless, drunken idiot, and it's very hard to keep her under control."

"You have my sympathy," the pale bouncer replied, nodding. He returned the bow. "It's nice to meet such a pretty, polite young lady as yourself in my line of work, so your cooperation in this is greatly appreciated."

"It's no problem," Hina smiled.

"—and then that loud-mouthed orange-wearing runt kicked both me and my partner here in the back of the head. Next thing we know, we've been tied up and hung out to dry. Most humiliating thing to happen to us in years. So, of course, it was around that point we decided that a change of careers was in order. Now fast forward a couple of years and a few different jobs, and, well, here we are today!" The muscular bouncer finished his anecdote with a grandiose flourish.

Nishizawa giggled, and the man smiled at this.

"You're a sweet kid," he commented. "Try not to end up a delinquent like that green-haired hag over there, 'kay?" He tousled her hair cheerfully.

Yukiji bristled at that comment, but the memory of the men's weapons and the ass whooping she had received at their hands when she had tried to resist being escorted out gave her reason to pause. Feeling the general soreness of her body and the sharply stinging marks on her skin, she held her tongue.

But just barely.

_'Grr... Freaking jerks... I'm not even thirty. How dare they call me old!'_ Yukiji shook her head, gritting her teeth. She beckoned for the two younger girls. "C'mon, let's go. I know when I'm not wanted," she said huffily. Grabbing Ayumu and Hina by their hands, Yukiji led them off, making sure to really _swing _her hips as she retreated to let the guards get a good look at what they were missing.

And it seemed to work, as she soon heard the two whispering to each other.

"Yo, Waraji, look at that one chick's ass," Guard One whispered to Guard Two, nudging him in the ribs.

"Oh, I'm lookin', alright, Zōri, pal," Guard Two responded as he leered after the departing figures.

Yukiji proudly puffed her chest out at this, a smug smirk adorning her lips.

"She must have to work extra hard to get her buns to look like that," Guard One observed, giggling lecherously.

"I know what you mean, I've seen tons of chicks in my time, but I ain't never seen one with an ass like that."

Hearing this, Yukiji cooed cheerfully, gaily shaking her hips from side to side. She spun around and waved at the two guards. "Oh, you two are too kind~!" She chirped, cheerfully blowing them a kiss. "I forgi—" She started, intending to tell them that they were forgiven for their earlier rudeness, only to be abruptly stopped mid-sentence, finding her words cut off by the icy looks the two thugs were giving her.

They stared at her, stone-faced. "Oy," Guard One, Zōri, began, "what makes you think we were talkin' 'bout you?" He rolled his eyes. "Dumb old bitch..." he muttered under his breath disdainfully, causing his partner to nod in agreement.

"OH **FUCK** _**YOU**_! YOU CAN'T BE ANY YOUNGER THAN ME, YOU GODDAMN HYPOCRITES!" Yukiji howled furiously, all patience instantly evaporating.

Guard Two -Waraji, the one with the eye-patch- snorted, waving a hand (his partner's, to be precise) dismissively. "Tch, it's different for guys."

That, however, was the **wrong** thing to say.

With a guttural bellow, Yukiji attacked. They might have gotten the drop on her before, but this time she was fueled by one of the most powerful forces in the impure world, the mortal realm, middle-earth, or anywhere else between Heaven and Hell: righteous feminine fury.

Her muscles coiled and tensed, winding up, storing energy. The air about her kindled, bursting alight with the incorporeal Manifestation of her wrath. Her eyes glinted darkly, betraying a feral strength to match that of even the most terrible beasts. She smoothly shifted her weight on her legs, entering a subtle martial stance. Snarling, she kicked off, her limbs converting potential energy into kinetic energy, sending her flying through the air towards her targets.

She cocked her arms, drawing her fists back even as she swiftly flew nearer and nearer to the dumbstruck meat-heads who had roused her ire. Fractions of seconds later, she had drawn within striking distance. With a _kiai_, a shout emanating from her abdomen, resonating in her chest and focusing her _ki_, she loosed her fists. Like lightning, her hands shot forth, striking her foes. Her left hand caught Zōri on the forehead, narrowly missing his temple. Her right hand fell upon Waraji's nose with an audible CRACK, her knuckles sharply digging into the cartilage.

She landed softly upon her feet, the two falling back from the momentum of her pounce. Seamlessly, gracefully, she dashed forward, jumping up and snapping her left leg around from the side, delivering a flying roundhouse kick to Zōri's right arm before he could draw his weapon. She followed up with a right hook to the left cheek, before she dropped back down.

She leaned back, casually avoiding a diagonal one-handed slash from Waraji's hardwood katana. Then she flickered out of sight, quickly moving to instantly reappear behind him. She drove an elbow into his spine, then she wrapped an arm around his shoulder, grabbed his free hand, and flipped him onto his back, unceremoniously taking him out of the fight.

She then looked back over her shoulder at the skinny bouncer. Her eyes were narrowed, her expression dead-serious. And, with the sort of moves usually only seen martial arts movies and shōnen fighting manga, she quickly kicked him in the head, dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

Seeing the two offenders lying in a heap, she snorted. "Bah! Different for men _my __**ass**_," she growled, giving the meat-heads one last kick before running off to catch up with the other two girls.

A few moments later, Zōri grimaced as he gradually regained his senses, wiping some blood off of his split lip. "Damn, that green-haired one really packs a punch, eh, Waraji?"

The second guard, his bent nose leaking blood like a faucet, nodded sagely. "Yeah. I'b just glad the wud wid dad ass diddud see dat."

"Yeah, I know whatcha mean. I'd hate for that pink-haired vixen to think I'm some sort of pussy."

Waraji stared at his partner. "Duh pig-aired wud? Dat flat-chesded brat? Fug doh! I'b tokking 'bout duh wud wid duh purple 'air add pigtails. _Dad_ ass, dow dad 'az sub fide cushiod fer pushid, 'f'ya doh whud I bead."

Zōri rolled his eyes. "Idiot. That chick is too fucking plain. The pink-haired one, though..." he drooled slightly as his face adopted a dreamy expression. "She's cute, but ya can also tell she's tough as nails. I mean, that behind is just _so_ perfectly toned..." He licked his lips. "And you can TOTALLY tell that she'd be able to **anything** I could dish out (or in) to her in bed," he finished suggestively.

Waraji laughed. "Bah! Da's jes cuz yer a fuggid' pussy. Be, doh... heh, well, dey usually edd up so oberwellbed dad dey jes' beg be to stay add keep fuggig deir braids out all day, ya doh?"

"You're full of shit. The only chicks you can please is virgins who don't know no better, _dumbass_." The first bouncer sneered, putting particular emphasis on the last word.

"Fug you," Waraji glowered, "I could todally get eddy o' dose girls beggig for be to keep goig add goig." He pointed at the distant sillhouettes of Ayumu and the Katsura sisters.

"No duh," Zōri replied, rolling his eyes like there was an Olympic medal to be had for it, "I just _told_ you that you can only impress idiot virgins, and those chicks've totally never been within ten feet of a real dick."

Waraji looked thoughtful. "Ah, yeah, I sh'poze sho, bud whud aboud duh greed-'aired wud?" He gestured towards the verdette who had come from behind and kicked both their asses in an total upset, dominating them for the entirety of their sudden, short rematch. "Dere's doh way _she's_ a burdjid."

"Well, sure," Zōri shrugged, "But do you really wanna go anywhere near that hag's pussy? Who knows what kind of disgusting shit she's shoved up there over the years."

"Oh. Yeah." Waraji grimaced, thinking back on those pamphlets on common venereal diseases he'd gotten from his fucking bastard of a doctor cousin for his twenty-sixth birthday a few years back. It had been in full, gruesome, technicolor, showing closeups of genital warts, pubic lice, and other worse things. "Doh, I s'pose I doht. 'Oo doze whut sorda dasdy stuff she'd gib be?"

"_**ALL OF MY HATE!-!**_" Yukiji roared violently in the distance.

* * *

At the _Suiken-Lee Juice Bar_, a small, alcohol-free establishment run by an eccentric Bruce-looking health nut, Yukiji was trying (and failing) to drown her sorrows and frustrations in the bottle. She was on her fourth 'Beautiful Blueberry Beast' smoothie, and her toungue was greener than a leprechaun's taint (which was only confusing because the drink itself was a deep shade of navy).[**1**]

"Damnit... I'm hot..." the verdette moped, head lying on the counter. "I'm _totally_ still hot, right guys?" She looked to Hinagiku and Ayumu, a hint of desperation in her words.

Hinagiku sweat-dropped. "Erm, I'm not sure I'd be the best one to ask, seeing as how I'm your sister. And straight." She turned to face Ayumu. "What do you think, Nishizawa?" she asked.

Ayumu stroked her chin contemplatively, idly taking another sip of her 'Passion-fruit of Youth' shake. "Well... erm... huh..." She shrugged. "Ehhh, the way I see it, you're, like, more mature (and presumably more experienced) than either of us," she ticked one finger, "you have a great figure," she ticked two fingers, "and you're fun-loving too," she ticked three fingers, a smile on her face. "I'm _sure_ the right guy would simply love to have you.

"You just haven't been looking in the right place to _find_ the right guy, I guess," she concluded. Reaching over Hinagiku, she patted the woman who might end up being her teacher on the shoulder in a comforting manner.

"Yeah? I doubt that," Yukiji replied gloomily. Her eyelids were red and puffy.

"No, seriously, you aren't looking in the right places to find good guys. I, mean, seriously, _Z__ōri__ and Waraji_?" Ayumu tutted in disappointment. "Seriously, how much lower can you look? Those two are just a couple of small-time punks with no respect for women. You have to go for a nice guy, or no guy at all," she said with certainty.

"Bah, nice guys finish last. Why would I ever want one?"

Ayumu smirked knowingly. "Nice guys finish last because their partners finish first, if you know what I mean."

Yukiji Katsura blinked. She opened her mouth to respond, but she could not think of anything she could say to that. And it made sense, in a way, since all the assholes she had ever dated had always finished first and left her hanging. When she looked at it that way, then yeah, having a nice guy for a boyfriend or lover suddenly seemed a whole lot better than she would have normally thought.

There was, however, one problem with the idea of snaring herself a 'nice guy'. "Where the fu—er, I mean, heck," she corrected herself sheepishly at Hinagiku's disapproving glare, "am I supposed to find a man who_ isn't _a selfish bastard?"

Ayumu smiled. Bait taken. Now to set the hook. "You could always try someone like Hayate-kun," she suggested, ignoring the murderous glare Hinagiku was giving her.

"Hayate? You mean as in _Ayasak_i? _Hayate_ _Ayasaki_? Bwahahahahaha!" she burst out in laughter. 'Hahaha! Oh God! That's just so freaking adorable, _Nishi-tan_!" she chuckled, wiping a mirthful tear from her eye. "I'm sure that Ayasaki-san is indeed a very nice boy, but that's _all_ he is. A boy. One of my students, even. I mean, **God**, I could get my ass _fired_ if I tried anything with him. It wouldn't be worth losing my nice, comfy job—"

"—Not doing your job doesn't make it comfy—" Hinagiku interjected bluntly, but she was summarily ignored.

"—just to fuck some kid. And that's _all _he is to me: a kid, a boy, a child, my student... Not a man or a hunk or a hottie or a dreamboat. Just a boy. Totally not interested," she concluded, crossing her arms.

She gave Ayumu a grateful look. "Now, I appreciate that you're just trying to help, but there's nothing you can say that would make me want Hayate. But I'm sure there are others out there... I mean, there _have_ to be..." The image of the face of fellow teacher and long-time friend Kyōnosuke Kaoru appeared in her mind. "There _has_ to be someone else... Anyone else..." The image of the face of Kyōnosuke Kaoru sighed. "**_Anyone. __Else._**" The image of the face of Kyōnosuke Kaoru moped and faded from Yukiji's mindscape.

Ayumu shrugged sportingly. "Eh, I understand. After all, it's not like I can do or say anything to convince you otherwise..." Her cell phone beeped. "... Except for this, of course," she said, holding her phone's screen up to Yukiji's eyes.

Yukiji blinked. Was she seeing what she thought she was seeing? She blinked again. Once. Twice. Thrice. Then she let out a long, low, appreciative wolf-whistle. "_Hot __**damn**_, girl, where in the WORLD did you get that video?"

"Miki-chan."

Yukiji's eyes widened. "Hanabishi? Don't tell me _she _made that video!"

Hinagiku stared at the two in confusion. What on earth were they talking about?

Nishizawa giggled and shook her head. "No, but she knows the person who _did_."

Yukiji mulled this over for a moment or two. "Do you think she could introduce to him?" she asked finally. "The guy in the video, I mean." She took a sip from her smoothie.

"Of course," Ayumu answered, lazily using her straw to stir at the dregs of her shake, "After all, it's just Hayate-kun."

Yukiji barely avoided choking on her 'Beautiful Blueberry Beast' at that revelation. "No fucking way!" she exclaimed "There's no way in Hell that that's Hayate Ayasaki! He's just—"

"—a boy?" Ayumu predictated[**2**] sweetly, the slightest hint of steel in her tone.

Warning signs started going off in Yukiji's mind, but she paid them no heed. "Well, yeah," she said. "And I don't need a boy. I need a man—"

"—a man like Zōri or Waraji?" Nishizawa smiled dangerously. "Because I'll tell you here and now: Hayate is -hands down- a better man than both of those jackasses combined, ten thousand times over. They can't even _begin_ to compare to someone as kind and considerate and brave and funny as Hayate-kun."

Yukiji seemed to reluctantly consider this. "Well..." she murmured after thinking on it for a few minutes, "I suppose I could always find another job if I got fired... And he _is_, like, practically eighteen..."

"Okay, what the _Hell_." Hinagiku snapped in disbelief, "What could _**possibly**_ have made you do a complete one eighty on this so quickly, sis?" Curious and bemused, she snatched Ayumu's cellphone out of her older sister's hands. "Let me... see... that...?" She gasped. Her eyes widened, and blood surged forth to reinforce her cheeks. "Oh... ... ... o-o-oh m-my God... ... ..." She shook her head, and she looked not at, but _through_ the cellphone's screen. Her eyes were unseeing, suddenly afflicted as she was with the hundred meter stare.

Hina swiftly turned to face Ayumu. She looked both furious and faintly aroused. "Nishizawa-san! How could you exploit Hayate-kun's image like that!-? I mean, lying about one of your future classmates so cruelly... How would _you_ like it if Hayate went around showing people an inappropriate video and telling people that you were the person in it, huh?-!-?-!"

Ayumu shook her head frantically. "No! No! It really _is_ him! Don't you see that scar near the back of his left knee? That's Hayate-kun!"

"... ... ... what." Hinagiku stared at her friend disbelievingly. When the girl did not change her position, she looked back at the phone and replayed the compressed video.

"Stop! Stop!" Nishizawa exclaimed. Hinagiku paused it. "Right there, see?" The pigtailed girl pointed at a slightly off-color patch of skin on the screen.

Hinagiku gulped. The discoloration was indeed the same size and shape of the scar, and it was on the same place it was on Hayate.

The scar in question, an ugly, jagged, roughly crescent-shaped affair near the back of Hayate Ayasaki's knee, was a mark that had been there since his childhood. He had gotten it at the age of four when a small shark had bitten him on the leg while he had been helping his parents steal from underwater lobster traps. It had not gotten any further than the first bite, however, as his older brother Ikusa had quickly come to his rescue, killing the overly-inquisitive fish with a single punch. They ate well that night, and Hayate had held the mark as something like a point of pride ever since (which has always been lacking in his life), as well as a reminder of his brave, seemingly selfless brother, even after not seeing him for years.

Both Hinagiku and Ayumu knew the story of this scar, having been told it by Hayate after accidentally walking in on him changing his trousers during the trip to Greece. And without a clear shot of the face of the person in the video, that scar was the best thing they had for identifying that, yes, it was, in fact, Hayate.

_"— and then he says: 'Oh! Wrong hole!'" Nishizawa finished, eliciting a guilty snicker from Hinagiku._

_ "Goodness, Nishizawa-san..." The pinkette panted, catching her breath, "where in the world did you ever come to learn a joke like that?"_

_ "Ah, my dad tells it every time he has company over for dinner, when he thinks my little brother Kazuki and me have gone to bed. The walls in our apartment are paper-thin and provide, like, zero soundproofing. I can hear EVERYTHING from my bedroom." Ayumu shuddered, looking traumatized._

_ Hinagiku, realizing the implications of this, shuddered as well, nodding sympathetically. "I am _so_ sorry." She patted her friend on the shoulder in a comforting fashion._

_ Ayumu shook her head. "Nah, it's okay. I mean, I'm used to it after all these years. And besides, I still managed to grow up into a perfectly sane, well-adjusted teenager, didn't I?" She smiled unevenly, her eyebrow twitching slightly._

_ Hinagiku sweat-dropped as she reached to open the door, thinking back on Nishizawa had said at that bathhouse all those weeks ago... _

_ So wrapped up in her thoughts was she that she did not even realize that the door she was opening did NOT lead to the pool until she saw Hayate Ayasaki, standing next to his bed at the private resort, naked save for a pair of _Fist of the North Star_ boxers (a gift from Nagi)._

_"Oh my God!" Hinagiku squealed, face red, when the revelation of what she was looking at struck her. "I didn't mean to... Oh, I'm so sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I'm so sorry I could just DIE!" she moaned, apologizing profusely, too startled by what she was seeing to take the ordinary, knee-jerk tsundere course of action (namely, either punching Hayate or smacking him with a hammerspace hammer) and aware of the fact that she had nobody to blame for this but herself._

_ That said, this did not occur to Hayate, who automatically flinched before loudly shouting a vaguely apologetic-sounding exclamation. _

_ Ayumu listened to the two -Hayate and Hingiku- repeatedly exchanging cries of "I'm sorry!" with one another. _

_ She sweat-dropped._

_ Shyly peeking out from behind Hina, Nishizawa eyed the half-naked butler. Visually tracing his firmly toned, perfectly-shaped leg muscles -a small trail of drool finding its way out her mouth and down her chin- she noticed something near the outer-side of his left knee..._

_ "Hey, what's that?" she asked without thinking, indicating the ugly, jagged, roughly crescent-shaped marking on the side of his leg. Hinagiku, noticing what the other girl was pointing at, fought back a gasp at the sight of the dermatological disfigurement.  
_

_ Hayate, following her finger looked down at his scar. "What, this?" He turned to give Ayumu a better view of the blemish, placing a hand on it. Seeing Nishizawa nod, he smiled brightly – a genuinely happy smile, not his usual hollow facsimile of one. "It's a reminder of my brother." _

_ "Your... brother...?" Nishizawa stared dumbly at Hayate, eyes wide. The boy had always hated talking about himself or his family back when they were going to the same school, and she did not remember him __ever__ mentioning any brother. "You have a _brother_?" she said intelligently._

_ Hayate nodded. "Yeah, Ikusa... He's a number of years older than me, though, and I haven't seen him in years... He was a good person, always looking out for me. I've looked up to him for as long as I can remember..."_

_ Hinagiku and Nishizawa sniffed, eyes watery. They were both going "D'aawww!" internally. _

_ Seeing that the girls did not seem to have anything to say, he continued. "... One day, when I was four, I was out by the ocean hunting for caged lobsters while my parents supervised—"_

_ Ayumu, knowing pretty well what Hayate's parents were like, clenched her fists at her sides, figuring out that by 'supervising', Hayate meant that they were doing nothing and leaving all the work to him. As for, Hinagiku, well... going from what she knew of her own parents, she was also able to quickly ascertain this._

_ "—and there I was, holding my breath underwater, trying my hardest to open the trap, when all of a sudden I felt a pain on my leg. Reaching down to rub it, my hand brushed against a cold, smooth snout. So I looked down, and I almost forgot to hold my breath, I was so terrified. _

_"Because there, latched onto my leg, was a shark!"_

_ Nishizawa and Hinagiku gasped. While something like that would probably not be too much trouble for the strong sixteen year old Hayate standing before them, it had to have been horrifically traumatizing for the four year old Ayasaki all those years ago._

_ "Now, admittedly," Hayate confessed, "it was a small shark -no bigger than I am now- but that was no comfort to me back then. Its jaws were clamped tight down on my leg, and it probably would have bitten it clean off if my big brother, Ikusa, hadn't come to my rescue._

_ "He appeared right in front of me, out of nowhere, and killed the shark with a single punch. He saved my life. I almost couldn't believe at the time: up until then, he'd always been so distant to me, for as long as I could remember. For a long time, I'd thought he hated and resented me... He'd always addressed me so coldly, calling me 'Hayate-san', and yet there he was, saving my life. I didn't know what to think, but I didn't have the chance to do so either way. I had been underwater without air for too long – I was unable to stay conscious, and I passed out._

_"The next thing I knew, I was on the beach. My leg was wrapped up in my brother's jacket, and Ikusa was leaning over me with tears in his eyes. When he saw that I was awake, he wrapped his arms around me and gave me the biggest hug I've ever had, and he said to me, he says: 'Hayate, you dummy... You have ta be more careful, little bro... I don't want you to die and leave me here all alone... Don't make me worry like that, you little dummy...!' I was at a loss for words at that, but I still managed to tell him, I say: 'Why are you so sad, Iku-bro...? If I die, mama and daddy can just get you a new little brother... a better one than me.'"_

_ Hinagiku and Nishizawa nearly broke out into tears at this, and they fought back the urge to embrace their common crush and comfort him and tell him that everything was going to be alright. Hayate's story was really tugging at their heartstrings.  
_

_ "And Ikusa got real upset at this. He broke out weeping and sobbing, and he said to me: 'No, little brother... Hayate-bro... Don't you EVER think like that...! You're my dear, beloved little brother – you're irreplaceable, and nothing will ever, **ever** change that!' And then he reached down to my leg and dipped his finger in the blood. With it, he wrote the kanji_ '弟' _on my hand and _'兄' _on his own hand. And he said to me: 'Do you see this, Hayate-bro? "Little brother,"' he pointed at the symbol on my hand, 'and "big brother,"' he pointed at the symbol on his own hand. 'We're brothers. That means I'll always be there to look out for you, and you'll always be there to bug me. 'Kay, little bro?'"_

_There was silence._

_Then, all at once, Hinagiku and Ayumu burst into tears and grabbed Hayate into a group hug.  
_

Hinagiku, seeing that scar on the "mystery" boy's leg -remembering Hayate's one and the story behind it- had to admit that it seemed likely that 'you know what? yeah, maybe the person it the video really _is_ Hayate Ayasaki'.

Blink.

A moment passed. Then another.

A strangled cross between a gasp, a squeak, and a yowl.

"OH_MY**FUCKINGGAWD**_!" Hinagiku shrieked when the full weight of that revelation struck her.

She honestly just about had a fit at realizing that she had just seen her crush's naked manhood on video (even if the picture quality _was_ incredibly poor on Ayumu's phone).

A pause.

Wait.

Waitwaitwait.

Wait just a gosh-darned minute, there: If the guy was Hayate...

Then who THE _FUCK_ was the **girl **in the video?

... ... ... At least, Hinagiku _hoped_ it was a girl...

"Don't tell that was you with him!" She hissed, sounding both suspicious and betrayed as she turned on her friend, pointing an accusing finger at her. "I thought you said—!"

"—Don't worry," Ayumu interjected calmly, doing her college best to reassure the frantic pinkette. "The text that came with the video file said the girl was Sakuya-san."

Hinagiku stared at Nishizawa, eyes half-lidded. "Oyyyy..." she growled, her voice dangerously low, "Why the heck was Sakuya-san sleeping with Hayate-kun?" she asked, glaring at her friend. Her voice was lethally frigid, causing her glass of pop to freeze into a pop-sicle.

Seeing her friend's temper beginning to boil over, Ayumu held her hands up placatingly. "WAH!" she squeaked, "No! No! Nononono! Not like that! They didn't actually _do_ anything! Miki-san said as much in the text!"

Yukiji blinked. "Waaaaiiiit just a gosh-darned minute, here..." She drawled, eying the two younger girls thoughtfully. "Just gimme a moment to see if I've got this straight: what you two're saying... is that Hayate... _Ayasaki_, Hayate... ... ... is still a virgin?"

This question caused the two girls to face-fault, blushing furiously when they stood back up a couple of seconds later.

Yukiji snickered at their reaction. "Hm, well I suppose it _would_ be nice to teach him how one goes about pleasing a lady..." she mused, eyes twinkling devilishly.

Hinagiku turned about face and redirected her glare -now thrice as withering as normal- at her irresponsible older sister. "Don't you _dare_—!"

Yukiji rolled her eyes and playfully flicked her pinkette sibling on the forehead. "—Maaaa~aah," she mumbled, waving a hand dismissively, "Don't be such a baaa~aby," she chided lyrically. "If you don't want me going after him, then you'll just have to take him for yourself before I can. _Capisce_?"

Hinagiku blinked, remembering the words of that lady at the ice cream parlor. She frowned, trying futilely to fight down a blush. "D-dam-damnit..." she stuttered briefly as she struggled to keep her composure. "Wh-why does everyone keep telling me that...?"

Yukiji slapped her sister on the back, causing the girl to fall forward and have her head BASH against the hard countertop. "'Cause it's good life advice," she said absently, even as she drifted off into H-doki fantasies about what she had seen in that video.

She giggled lecherously, causing a certain silver-haired Classic Lit teacher to sneeze into the loud orange novella he was reading (_Make Out Paradise 2_, a personal favorite of his) in his accustomed spot perched within one of the taller tree at the city park. His right eye blinked morosely (an impressing feat for some people, but between the scarf over his mouth and nose and the lopsided bandana tied over his left eye, he had long become proficient in communicating even the most subtle emotions with the remaining exposed quarter of his face), before it grimaced. He would have to go home and change his scarf again. He could not very well do it in public where someone might see his _face_, after all.

Taking a cursory look at his surroundings, he nodded once to himself and closed his book, jumping down from his comfy branch. _'Geeze... I hope that idiot isn't planning to try and pull _another _prank on me...'_ he thought, shaking his head with a sigh as he headed back to his apartment.

* * *

Back at Nagi's place, the Post-Golden Week Slumber Party festivities were well under way. It was a rowdy, raucous affair involving cat-calls, donuts, videogames, and respectable classical music blaring over the stereos. The floor was strewn with junk food wrappers and magazines.

Maria, blissfully oblivious to the goings-on, was on the fourth verse of _A Cruel Angel's Thesis_ in her secret karaoke lair and just generally having a helluva time.

Klaus, Tama, and Shiranui were in the Limbo of Forgotten Characters, along with some violently bipolar woman calling herself Lunch (Or was it Launch? Or maybe Ranch? They couldn't tell with any certainty). They were _not_ having a helluva time, but that is unimportant.

Nagi was engaging Omega Ridley in a duel to the death as the Space-Irish badass Samus Aran [**3**], imagining herself in the legendary blonde bounty hunter's place. She too was having a helluva time.

Risa and Sakuya were having a helluva time ogling a certain blue-haired butler who had been coerced into adding cat ears and a tail to his maid costume. 'Neko Hermione', as the girls were calling Hayate, was blushing bashfully as Miki undid the blouse and began molesting Neko Hermione's chest, calling it a 'skinship grope', and saying that it would "help your breasts grow."

Isumi had given the camera to Izumi to film the proceedings, and was now conversing civilly with Neko Hermione as though s/he were _not_ being violated by the roving hands of a teasing Miki. And Nagi continued playing her videogame, having tuned out everyone else as she rammed another missile down the throat of a highly improbable plasma-vomiting space dragon.

"How are you doing, today, Neko Hermione-san?" Isumi greeted the embarrassed Hayate.

"Ahhh~n... Auu~uu..." Hayate moaned as Miki gently tweaked his poor (or lucky, if that floats your boat) nipples. "Ahhhn, nooo~ooo... N-no-no-not-not-not th-there...!" He was red-faced and panting and squirming and squealing. "Bad-bad-bad...! Th-that's a b-b-b-ba-bad sp-spot... EEEYAA~AAH!" He screwed up his eyes as Miki continued her cruelly pleasurable manual pectoral ministrations.

"Oh, I see. That's too bad, Hermione-san. Would you like some tea?"

"_NOOOO~OOO_!" Hayate hissed and yowled as Miki began nibbling on his ear. "NONONONO! PLEASESTOP! PLEASESTOP! PLEASE-PLEASE-PLEASE-PLEA— _**AAAAAHHHH~NN**_!" He squealed in ecstasy as Miki tenderly traced the bite marks on his earlobe with her tongue.

"I see," Isumi nodded, "No tea, then. Tell me, what do you think of the weather?"

"... ... ... ... ... ... h-h-hot-hot...! ... t-too hot...!" Hayate squealed as Miki continued to orally fuck his ear while sensually caressing his chest.

"Hm, yes. I suppose it has been quite warm this year, hasn't it..." Isumi mused. "What about your opinions on domestic animals? Do you prefer cats or dogs?"

"_**NYAA~AN**_!" Hayate clasped his hands over his groin, desperately attempting to hold his skirt down. His eyes were wide, and he had a pained expression on his face.

Miki smirked. "I see... _Kancho_, eh?"

Ignoring them, Isumi continued. "Yes, I suppose that would make sense, seeing as Nagi already has two cats of her own living here. What is your stance on animal control, then?"

Hayate moaned. "Nyuuu... too... horny..." he panted, dropping to his knees, "M-m-make it... make it stop... ... ..."

"Well, spaying and neutering _are_ quite important for controlling pet populations and keeping their behavior manageable," Isumi agreed, causing Tama and Shiranui, in the Limbo of Forgotten Characters, to feel an icy chill shoot up their spines.

Miki leered at the humiliated and aroused Ayasaki. "Wow, Hermione-chan -or should I call you Hayata-kun?- I never thought you were the sort to go for anal... at last, not on the receiving end..." Hayate whimpered, face red, causing Miss Hanabishi to chuckle evilly. "I guess this means Kotetsu wins, eh, Izumi?" she turned to her mildly ditzy friend.

Izumi stared at her friend uncomprehendingly. "Don't look at the camera, dummy!" she said at last, deciding to ignore the question and instead admonish her girlfriend: "You always tell me not to look in the camera, yet what do you do as soon as I start filming you? You look at the camera!"

Miki rolled her eyes. "What, so you don't care that Kotetsu-san has pretty much won, seeing as how Hayata-kun is apparently gay? ... Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you."

Hayate blanched at this, but he was too busy fighting down an erection to defend himself.

"Nyeeh, don't be so mean, Miki!" Izumi whined. "You were the one who did it to him! And besides, if liking it in the ass made you gay, then I'd probably be the gayest one here. But I like 'Ta-kun, whose a guy, which means I'm not gay."

A pause.

Miki blinked. "Uh... Weeeellll... ... ... I must admit that I can't really argue against that kind of logic..." She trailed off, looking thoughtful."... well, okay, I suppose that's not necessarily exactly true..." she confessed after a moment of thought. _'After all, if you can fight fire with fire, why not bad logic with bad logic?'_

Clearing her throat, Miki began: "'Well, be that as it may, the person doing it to him was me. And I'm gayer than Ellen Degeneres, therefore everything I did to him was thus gay by default, and he enjoyed it. So he's gay. QED."

Izumi giggled. "Silly Miki-chan. Liking Hina doesn't make you gay. If that were the case, _I'd _be gay. But I also like Hayata-kun, so I can't be gay. Therefore I'm straight. _Ipso facto_."

Risa, stepping forward, nodding her head. "Yeah, Hina's a special case. After all, if all the girls who liked her were gay, then there wouldn't be hardly _any_ straight couples at Hakuō. And besides, since Miki is a girl and Hayata-kun is a boy, anything they do is automatically straight. And if you get off on doing something straight, then you're straight until proven otherwise. You know, _quid pro quo_."

"No, no, no!" Sakuya said. "It doesn't work like that at all. Sexual orientation is totally just a societal construct – a delusion that has no basis in reality. Seriously, chimps are practically like a hundred percent human, and they don't give a flying fuck what they screw -as long as they can screw it- so why should we?"

Isumi cocked her head. "Hm, that is certainly an interesting way of looking at it. Is that how you, personally, feel on the matter?" she inquired thoughtfully.

"... no," Sakuya admitted. "But I figured _someone_ had to say it, so I decided to play the role of devil's advocate and, well, say it. Y'know whatta mean?"

Isumi shook her head. "No, I do not, but I must say that it certainly sounded smart."

Nagi snorted from where she was playing her videogame. "_Sounding_ smart doesn't make it any more **valid**, doy."

"Oh yeah?" Sakuya challenged. "And what do you think?"

"I think you guys are full of shit," the pigtailed blonde stated bluntly, causing the others to face-fault.

"What do you know?-!" Risa demanded indignantly, fists clenched and temples throbbing.

Nagi sighed and rolled her eyes, pausing the game as she turned to face the others. "I know that arguing with each other about Hayate's orientation won't do anything. If you want to prove something, you've gotta use practical experiments."

Hayate felt himself gulp in fear.

* * *

Ayumu and Hinagiku shuddered, feeling like spikes of ice had been suddenly jammed into their spines. Ayumu turned to look at Hinagiku. Hinagiku turned to look at Ayumu. Yukiji belched drunkenly, taking another swig from her secret emergency hip flask before ordering another smoothie.

"Nishizawa-san..."

"Hinagiku-chan..."

"Did you feel that just now?" They each asked the other simultaneously.

Both nodded.

Yukiji, slurping her beverage, eyed her sister and her sister's friend curiously. "Wassup with you two? You guys look like a ghost was just tapdancing on your grave, or something."

Ayumu was the first to respond. "I... I'm not sure..." she confessed, shaking her head slowly, "but I feel like Hayate-kun has somehow gotten himself tangled up in another unfortunate misunderstanding."

"Yeah, he _does_ have a talent for causing those, doesn't he?" the verdette teacher agreed. "But I can't imagine it could be anything too serious... right?"

Ayumu frowned nervously. "I'm not sure..." she turned to her pink-haired tomboyish friend. "What do you think, Hina?"

Hinagiku was silent for a few minutes before finally speaking, carefully and deliberately. "I think..." she began, "... I think... I think I have a feeling that his virtue is in peril of being stolen prematurely..."

Ayumu was not happy to hear that. "You think so too, then?"

"Perhaps..." Hinagiku murmured, her eyes narrowed, "But I have Miki, Risa, and Izumi keeping an eye on him, so everything should be fine."

Ayumu, not being particularly familiar with those three, simply nodded, accepting her friend's reply.

Yukiji, however, being well aware of just how... unreliable... the Three Stooges could be, blanched. "And that's supposed to reassure us? Please tell me you're joking." Her younger sister was pointedly silent. "Okay, what the _**fuck**_, sis?-!" Yukiji swore."What in the world were you thinking, putting those three in charge of making sure nobody jumps Ayasaki's bones?-!" She slammed the money for the bill on the table, then she grabbed the two younger girls' hands and dragged them off after her. "Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!" she snapped. "If we hurry, we might just make it in time to save his ass!" With that, the trio raced away into the night (well, more like late-ish evening, technically).

* * *

"I'm not gay!" Hayate exclaimed, squirming and struggling against his restraints. "... not that there's anything wrong with that," he added.

"We'll believe that after we've tested it for ourselves," Miki said tersely. "Risa, bring in that Train-otaku, will you? It's time to begin... the experiment." She grinned wickedly.

Hayate gulped. And when Kotetsu, carrying a bouquet of flowers and dressed in a very fancy tuxedo, was escorted in by Risa, he began his efforts to break free anew. But it was to no avail: the ropes held (who knew Isumi Saginomiya was so skilled with _shibari_?), and Hayate whimpered as Kotetsu Segawa placed the bouquet on his lap. Then the other boy puckered up and leaned in for the kiss.

Hayate leaned back as far as he could, causing the chair to which he was bound to fall backwards.

SMACK.

Kotetsu cursed, rubbing his chin where Hayate's feet had come up to kick it. But he recovered quickly, and moved to sweep Hayate up in his arms. "Don't worry, dear," he cooed, "Let me untie you. I'm sure it must be terribly uncomfortable," he said, giving the fellow butler a peck on the cheek.

SNAPCRACKSMACK.

THUDCRASH.

TINKLETINKLE. TWINKLETWINKLE.

Indignant and mortified, Hayate unconsciously called upon hidden reserves of strength, snapping the elegant silk ropes binding him, breaking the chair in half as he leapt to his feet, and giving the Segawa boy a megaton punch that would have made Naru Narusegawa proud. The boy flew through the air, turning rapidly end over end, crashing through the glass ceiling and vanishing into the distance as a twinkle in the sky.

"_**KOTETSU, YOU ASSHOLE!-!-!-!**_[**4**]"

"Aww," Izumi pouted, "How come 'Ta-kun never go all _tsun-tsun_ like that on me?" If it were not for her playful tone, Hayate would have thought she almost looked... _betrayed_.

Miki nodded. "As I thought: it looks like Hayata-kun is seriously head over heels for your loser brother, Izumi." She took out a pen and a clipboard and began jotting something down on it.

"There's no way in Hell I could ever like that perverted train freak!" Hayate snapped in a tone that would have made Rie Kugimiya green with envy.

Miki continued nodding as she took notes. "Yup, subject '_Ha_' exhibits classic tsundere tendencies when exposed to variable '_Ko_'," she muttered, scrawling on her notepad. "Now to continue test with exposure to variable '_Ri_', followed by '_Su_' and '_Zu_'.

"Oy, Risa, it's your turn to play with Hayata-kun!" Miki shouted out towards Risa, who swaggered in. She was dressed in her shrine maiden clothes and leering lecherously at the still-crossdressed Hayate.

Without so much as a heads up, Risa parted the front of her robes like a veil, shamelessly exposing her chest to a very flustered butler. "Wh-what are you d-d-do-doing, Asakaze-san?-! Please, cover yourself!" Hayate entreated, doing his best to avert his gaze.

"Why? It's not like you're gonna do anything ecchi, to me, what with being gay and all," she purred slyly, stretching her arms and yawning, arching her back, causing the robes to fall further open.

"I-I-I'm not gay!" Hayate stammered indignantly.

"Yeah? Well you aren't exactly doing a very good job of convincing me. I mean, you go full-blown tsundere on that train geek for giving you a little kiss, but you can't even look me in the eyes," she taunted.

"I wasn't being _tsun-tsun_!" Hayate argued, "I simply punched him because he pissed me off by being a pervert!"

"... ... ... that sounds pretty damn _tsun-tsun_ to me," Risa muttered snidely. "Clearly, you have it bad for him."

"I do not!"

Risa smirked. "Then prove it. Give me a kiss, and maybe then I'll be more willing to believe you..." Her words carried a challenge, and Hayate was not about to turn it down, flustered as he was

"Okay, then!" Hayate stated, determination evident in his voice. But his courage was hardly boundless, and kissing a schoolfriend -no matter how pretty she was and how willing she acted- was nonetheless an incredibly daunting task to the socially-inept cassanova. With a gulp, he unsteadily put one foot in front of the other, slowly _slowly_ walking up to Risa.

He was nervous, he was terrified, he was going to screw this up and she would hate him and call him a pervert and punch him and throw him out... He could not help but shiver as thousands of worst-case scenarios raced through his head, each one worse than the last. No matter how good Hayate was at unintentionally charming girls, his awkwardness and cluelessness and deeply-seated self-loathing and inferiority-complex frequently led him to say and do the wrong thing. Hayate was not entirely unaware of his... _talent_... for attracting girls without even trying, but for him it was more a source of misery than happiness. After all, every time he tried to consciously access these abilities to woo or flirt with a girl, he would invariably end up doing the opposite and infuriating or upsetting her without even realizing it.

He had been like that for as long as he could remember, and had long ago resigned himself to the idea of never finding love (at least, never finding _eros_ or _agape_ – hell, he had enough trouble even finding _philia_ or _storge_[**5**] since most of his friends tended to be distant and either resent him or pity him). Hayate had a neurotically low opinion of himself and absolutely zero self-esteem, so even when he did make friends, he simply assumed it was only because they felt obliged to be polite, and not because they actually liked him. Indeed, perhaps the greatest obstacle to Ayumu's goal would end up being Hayate believing himself to be unworthy of her feelings (that poor, deluded fool).

But enough about Hayate and how fucked up he is emotionally. Let us get back to the light-hearted fanservice.

Having finally reached Risa, Hayate paused to muster the guts to do what needed to be done. Leaning in, feeling like a nervous wreck, he puckered up and -_chu_- planted a light kiss on Risa's cheek. He quickly pulled back, blushing and stammering. "Th-th-there.. S-se-see? I-I'm n-n-no-not g-gay."

"BOOOOO~OO!" Sakuya jeered from the sidelines. "SHOW US SOME REAL ACTION, YA PUSSY!"

Miki smirked knowingly. "Told ya."

Isumi watched the proceedings, expression unchanged. She _was_ waving a flag and cheering Hayate on, though. "Go, Hayate-sama! Show her why you are the best!" she quietly rooted for him.

Izumi giggled, camera forgotten. "Oh, Hayata-kun~!" she cooed, "You are just so **adorable**~!"

Nagi was once more playing her game, though she was watching the proceedings out of the corner of her eye.

Risa simply rolled her eyes. "I guess you really ARE too dense for your own good," she mused, placing a hand on his buttocks.

Hayate did not say anything to this, terrified in his own way of somehow offending Miss Asakaze.

"But I suppose I should've expected that and been more foward," Risa continued, gently snaking her other hand down and flipping up Hayate's skirt. Li'l Hayate was starting to peek out of the strawberry panties at this new girl who was being so nice to him. "After all, being so oblivious to love is a huge part of what makes you so damn _moe_," she purred, roughly pushing the blue-haired boy down onto the floor.

"U-uuwaa~uu! Asakaze-san, please...!" Hayate begged, attempting to push the shrine maiden off. "If... if you continue like this..." His eyes glinted dangerously and his tone changed, "... I won't be able to control myself..."

Risa smirked, grinding herself against Hayate's hardness. "Good. That's what I'm hoping for Hayata—"

"—It's HAYA_**TE**_!" The butler snapped, rolling over to pin Risa beneath himself and reverse their positions. "Ha-Ya-Te! 'Te', not 'Ta'! TE! _TE_!"

With a snarl, he went to tear off Risa's panties, all higher reasoning faculties in his brain shutting down from a combination of lust and frustration. Pent up base emotions hijacked his impulse control centers and shut them down. Hormones running wild, all sheets to the wind, he grabbed a hold of Risa's mammaries and began roughly playing with them.

Risa grunted huskily. She was sweaty and sticky and hot and wet. She wrapped her arms around Hayate, feeling the hard, defined muscles tensing beneath his skin at her touch. She caressed his back with her hands while her eyes traced the numerous faint, barely-visible scars that marred his complexion. There were a few notable marks here and there that could be seen easily by anyone who looked, but for the most part they were so numerous that they blended together in a sort of uniform patchwork, the scar tissue being nearly more common than the normal skin.

Despite that, his skin was not leathery or rough – indeed, in defiance of everything Risa knew about dermatology, Hayate's worn and tattered epidermis was outright soft and smooth to the touch. It was paradoxical, to be sure, but Risa was not certain which -if either- of the two senses to disbelieve: her sight or her touch. But then the butler tweaked her nipples _ just so_ and she completely forgot this quandary in the face of mounting arousal.

She moaned, wordlessly imploring the butler to go further, arching her hips as she felt mounting heat in her loins reach agonizing levels.

Izumi blushed, covering her eyes. However, she left _just_ enough space between her fingers to allow her to peek through them.

Isumi watched calmly, having requisitioned Miki's clipboard and pen for her own nefarious purposes.

Miki, having picked up Isumi's camera from where Izumi had left it, was now recording footage for what was sure to become the perfect "super-scandalous" movie.

Sakuya munched on what was left of the popcorn, still shirtless (and bra-less) from the events of the previous chapter. She winced and swore when a particular bold move on Hayate's part caused her to lose focus on what she was doing and drop a handful of the hot popped and buttered kernels on her chest. Her attempts to brush them off only smeared the hot, buttery residue across her breasts, which were quickly turning a painful red from the minor burns.

Through a haze of animal lust, Risa grinned a shit-eating grin. While one hand went to below Hayate's belt to help guide Li'l Hayate to his destination, the other one went out to the side. She gave the others a thumbs up and flashed them a blindingly bright smile. "Looks like I win~!" She laughed, her chest heaving with the effort it was currently taking to do anything unrelated to getting her brains fucked out by her incredibly handsome and surprising skillful classmate.

Hayate blinked. His senses were returned to him as suddenly as they had been taken. Slowly, uncertainly, he pulled back and took a deep breath, eliciting a few disapproving whines and sighs from his rambunctious partner. With an blank expression, he stared dumbly at Risa. After a minute or two of this, he realized that he could see _everything_.

Blushing he coughed and averted his gaze. "What do you mean?" He inquired, fervently examining the hole in the ceiling. "What was it that you won?" He was clearly suspicious.

Risa shrugged nonchalantly. "Me and the girls—"

"—The girls?—" Hayate repeated questioningly, but Risa did not deign to acknowledge the obvious question in this statement.

"—had an ongoing bet on who would be the first one to sleep with you. So c'mon and fuck me already! I've got ten thousand yen riding on this outcome!"

Hayate blinked. He looked down at Li'l Hayate, who was standing tall and proud, hovering half a foot above Miss Asakazes naked gender. Like a lightning bolt, realization struck.

_'I-I... I nearly... with Asakaze-san... in public... ... ... oh me... oh my... oh __**FU**__—'_

With nary a word of warning, Hayate squeaked. With a not-so-slightly giddy-sounding giggle, he swooned -nose bloody, cheeks ruddy- and passed out cold, landing face-first in Risa's lap.

"Ah, a pity," Miki remarked unsympathetically, not bothering to hide her grin. "If you had held off on bragging until penetration had been achieved, then you probably would have won."

Risa snorted, not bothering to move Hayate's head. "Yeah right. Like you guys -especially Nagi- would've actually let him get any farther than he did. If I hadn't messed it up for myself, you guys definitely would've jumped in and pulled him offa me yourselves, or something."

"Ehhh, maybe." Miki shrugged. "Definitely 'or something', though. I mean, I probably wouldn't have intervened _personally_, but I imagine that Izumi, at least, probably would've done something. Eh, Izumi?"

"Eh, Miki," Miss Segawa responded, nodding in the affirmative.

"Right, and if not her, then Nagi," Risa gestured towards the blonde, who in response flipped her the bird without even looking away from the hi-def plasma screen flashing with the sublimely detailed and brilliantly rendered visual stimuli being presented by the game she was playing. Risa ignored this. Continuing: "and if not Nagi, then Isumi or Sakuya," she looked over at the two, who appeared to be busy comparing notes. On what, she was not sure, though she certainly had her suspicions... "Right...?"

Miki shrugged nonchalantly. "Meh."

* * *

_Omake: Blasting Off Again!_

It was dark, as far as he could tell. He felt wet... or... no, it was more like 'damp' than 'wet'. And he was cold. Except, he was not. His skin -where it was exposed, at any rate- was raw. And hot and sore. If he could see, he had a feeling he would find his epidermis to be the bright, searing pink of new skin.

It was likely due to the wind. The incessant scouring gust was beating against him, buffeting and bruising and abrading him. It felt like he was being worked over with a dozen steel-mesh scrubbing brushes. His skin was chapped and bloody and hot and cold, and the wind was roaring in his ears, a nearly deafening aural assault.

And he had no idea where he even was.

_'Huh... What happened to me...?'_

He did not get a chance to further puzzle over his predicament, though, as his train of thought was interrupted by a sudden collision with another body.

"Ow! Watch where you're flying, you great ugly palooka!" The other body reprimanded him, barely audible over the omnipresent white noise. The voice was... well, flamboyant was honestly one of the first words that came to mind. "Hey!" The voice snapped, "Pay attention!"

He opened his eyes a crack, making out a whitish blur with a small splotch of bluish-purple on one end.

Blink.

Wait, since when had his eyes been closed?

He opened them wider out of of curiousity.

And he immediately regretted doing so. The wind tore into his sockets, forcing quickly-evaporated tears to his eyes. It stung horribly and compelled him to quickly snap his eyelids back shut.

"Yoohoo~!" The voice spoke up again, "Are you thee~ere?" it sang. Upon receiving no response the stranger (he? ... yes, 'he', he was certain of that much; the voice definitely sounded male, at any rate) changed his tone. "He's not answering, Jesse."

"If he's not answering, it's because you aren't being assertive, James!" A woman's voice ('Jesse', it would seem; and the man's name was James, apparently) replied. He then felt a pair of hands -feminine, but far from delicate- grab onto him, shaking him. "Hey, wake up!" the woman shouted into his ear.

He cracked an eye open. "Whaddyawan'?" he grumbled grouchily. This time, he noticed his surroundings. Everything was blue as far as he could see, to left, to the right, behind him, in front of him, up, and... _'Don't look down don't look down don't look down don't look down don't look down,'_ he told himself, already knowing what he would see. _'Whatever you do, don't! Look! Down!'_

And of course...

... he looked down.

"FUCK," he cursed, seeing what he assumed to be the Sea of Japan far below, the massive commercial frigates sailing through its waters looking like ants from his perspective.

It looked like Team Rocket (plus one Kotetsu Segawa) was blasting off again.

* * *

[**1**]: This is a (silly) joke on the fact that, in the Japanese language, _ao_, the word for blue, actually covers the spectrum of blue to green, and a reference to the long-standing habit of lazier subbing and/or scanlating groups translating the title of Might Guy from _Naruto_ (or Maito Gai, if you're a really big fan of Engrish), a flamboyant martial artist and Bruce Lee expy who dresses in **green** spandex, as _The Beautiful __**Blue**__ Beast of Konoha (Leaf - as in konohagakure no sato/the village hidden in the leaves, the home of the main character _[Just in case there is anyone reading this fic who _doesn't _know anything about that particular series]_)_ from _Konoha no Kedakaki Aoi M__ōjū_ (according to the Naruto Wiki a more accurate translation is _The Leaf's Sublime Green Beast of Prey_).

[**2**]: This is another invented word of mine. It's a fusion of the words 'predict' and 'dictate'. Predictate: To say what someone else was going to say; To finish someone else's sentence. As in: "Fred and George always **predictate** one another, and each constantly finishes what the other is saying."

[**3**]: I say this because 'Samus' is a feminine version of the ridiculously Irish personal name 'Seamus', and 'Aran' is the name of a group of three islands off the western coast of Ireland: the Aran Islands, or _Oileáin Árann_. (Interestingly, I read that Samus Aran's name can be -liberally- interpreted to mean "the supplanter of islands" or "she who conquers isolated landmasses by force", or something along those lines.)

[**4**]: I had to fight very hard to keep from writing that as "_**KOTESTU NO BAAAKAAA!-!-!-!**_" But I want to keep gratuitous Japanese to a minimum in this fic (with one obvious exception), so I used an equivalent English phrase that would be able to convey roughly the same impression. I could have used 'idiot', 'dumbass', 'moron', or some synonym of those, but I felt that something more along the lines of 'asshole' or 'jackass' would be better, perhaps.

[**5**]: _'Eros'_, _'Agape'_, '_storge_' and _'Philia'_ are all different Ancient Greek words for types of love. Specifically: _'eros'_ is sexual love, _'agape'_ is ideal unconditional love, '_storge_' is natural affection as a child would have for a parent, and _'phileo'_ is a dispassionate virtuous love motivated by practical reasons that includes loyalty to friends and family and community (which is somewhat funny, considering that most fetishes are named via the scheme: [greek word] + _philia_). There is also a fifth type, '_xenia_', which was essentially hospitality, although more ritualized and treated as a much bigger deal than what is usually seen nowadays, in most places.

* * *

**A/N: One of my favorite lines from this chapter was: **_**"Nice guys finish last because their partners finish first, if you know what I mean."**_** I also liked well over half the things that came out of Yukiji's mouth. And does anyone else find it (scary? weird? interesting?) that most Hayate's (non-flashback) lines were incoherent and would not have been the least bit out of place coming from the lips of a female (or **_**uke**_**, I suppose) character in a hentai comic?**

**And speaking of flashbacks: ... certain... things... about Hayate's shark incident will end up being rather important to the plot, later on in the story.  
**

**On an unrelated note, Izumi is a fairly amusing character to write -even with the other two stooges- what with her tendency to say things that she probably shouldn't. And her brother Kotetsu is a fun character as well, even if only because of his borderline-singleminded crush on Hayate and Hayate's reactions to Kotetsu's advances. It's an interesting case of role-reversal where Hayate Ayasaki (Airheaded Gigolo, Master of Getting a Maiden's Heart Beating, Enemy to All Women, etc., etc., et cetera) is the tsundere (heavy on the **_**tsun-tsun**_**, light on the **_**dere-dere**_**) beating up on the perceived pervert.**

* * *

**Also A BIG ZOMGWTFBBQ WHAT ON EARTH I CAN'T BELIEVE ANNOUNCEMENT SO SURPRISING THAT IT WARRANTS ITS OWN LITTLE SECTION APART FROM THE REST OF THE AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm pretty sure that, with this update, _Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!_ is now the longest fic in the _Hayate the Combat Butler_ section thus far at the time of updating, just barely beating out Shuji Nonohana's _Wasuremasu! Hayate's Forgotten?_ by a few thousand words, if my estimations are correct. This is a big deal to me since this is by far the the longest ANYTHING I have EVER written. **

**Now, I _had_ typed up a nice retrospective on the progress I've made as a writer in the five years since my first fic __****Parrotboy the tale of How Sasuke got his Hairstyl**[e] and how writing this fic and others and nearly constantly working to get better has done more for my writing-skills than any amount of formal classes, but Firefox decided to be a bitch and piss me off by crashing and getting it eaten up by Internet Ghouls (as I have not found the Lazarus thingy -which restores text entries- for this version of Firefox) before I could finish and or save it. 

**So fuck it. I ain't gonna even try to restore it from memory. It was a spontaneous addition, and now the moment is ruined and the magic is gone. Maybe I'll feel like waxing poetic on my progress as a writer and how far I still have to go another time, but not now. _Thanks a lot, FIREFOX. _*Shakes fist angrily* **

**(To be fair, though, it's still a shitload better than Internet Explorer.)**

**ಠ_ಠ**

* * *

**And, again, the stats prior to updating:**

_Hayate the Combat Butler - Rated: T - English - Humor/Adventure - Chapters: 12 - Words: 56,258 - Reviews: 24 - Updated: 8-13-11 - Published: 2-27-10 - Ayumu & Hayate_

**And, additionally:**

_Hits: 5,464_

_Favorites: 17  
_

_Alerts: 22  
_

_C2s: 1  
_

**Chapter Added: **_8-17-11 [August 17, 2011]_


	14. Will You Sleep Over With Me?

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

_"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate."_

**A/N: This chapter, quite frankly, is not my favorite. Aside from a bit of moderately impressive Purple Prose, this chapter was absolutely zero fun for me as a writer. Not only does it scarcely progress the plot at all, but for the most part it simply DID NOT WANT to be written. But hey? Who knows, maybe it'll be more enjoyable for you guys as readers. It'll probably be a bit before the next chapter is up, but at least we're nearly through with this arc. Then it'll be on to a silly little breather chapter or two before diving into the real meat of the fic, where it'll hopefully come to earn the _Adventure_ part of its _Humor/Adventure_ genre (on a side note, I remember back when _Adventure _was _Action/Adventure_ and there were no _Crime_, _Western_, _Family_, or _Hurt/Comfort_ genres. Makes me feel older than I really am, in all truthfulness).**

**[INTRA-A/N WARNING: THE FOLLOWING AUTHOR'S NOTES CONTAIN REFERENCES TO LESS THAN PLEASANT BODILY FUNCTIONS AND BORDERLINE-DISTURBING HYGIENE. SERIOUSLY, IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH OR AN OVERLY VIVID IMAGINATION, THEN READ THE FOLLOWING AUTHOR'S NOTES AT YOUR OWN RISK.]**

**[non-sequitur] It does not help that I have been suffering from a bit of stupidly-partially-self-induced insomnia recently. *sigh* I remember when I used to be able to got to sleep at nine and rest the entire time. However, I've never really been the sort to instantly zonk out except when EXTREMELY tired, and I usually have a hell of a time getting myself to stop thinking and fall asleep. **

**And don't even get me started on waking up in the middle of the night (or in the early morning) to take a piss. Then again, it's better then waking up to find my underwear wet from a mid-night bladder discharge****. I'm a pretty heavy sleeper, but when that happens I am unable to get back to sleep without either changing my underwear or, if there aren't clean pairs of underwear (which is more common than one might expect), blow-drying the offending article. **

**Another thing that often disturbs my sleep is morning wood, which is really annoying because it is next to impossible to sleep with a stiff pecker getting worked up every time you roll over, and when that happens I'll usually also have to piss, so either way I have to get up and spend several minutes in the bathroom waiting for it to go down so I can pass the urine without accidentally ejaculating, (which may seem strange, but I usually never sit down unless it's to take a dump) which I have been irrationally wary of ever since the time I made the mistake of trying to force the urine out before the stiffness receded – I ended up blacking out for a second after coming in unto **** the toilet** (yay for archaic euphemisms for blowing one's load). My legs went to jelly, I lost my balance, and damn near almost smashed my head into the medicine cabinet before I regained control of my muscles. Naturally, I was freaked right the fuck out. Definitely not the ideal way for an impressionable young man to have his first hands-on experience with the phenomenon of orgasm. I'm honestly _**still**_** a bit paranoid about ejaculating and -by association- masturbating, which could very well be indicative of some sort of unpleasant psychological complex considering my demographic and otherwise textbook propensity for perviness.**

**On the topic of mental issues, I also suffer from scalp-focused ****Dermatillomania** (compulsively picking and scratching and tearing and sometimes biting one's skin -generally focusing on areas of perceived imperfections- oftentimes to the point of bleeding). As a result, I sometimes find myself nervously scratching at my scalp, and it is frequently scabbed over in certain spots. This tends to fluctuate and may be at least partly stress-related. I've also recently regressed into an old, nearly forgotten habit of clicking my teeth together, which so far is most annoying to myself as I did not have very good teeth to begin with and never really picked up on good dental hygiene habits when I was a kid.[/non-sequitur]

**Fuck, I'm wordy when I'm tired, but not the right kind of wordy. Both my author's notes are pointlessly long, but it's all I can do to keep myself from screaming at the difficulty of making actual progress on this chapter.**

**WARNING: This is a chapter filled with fluff and fantasies. If you dislike either warm fuzzy feelings, lighthearted silliness, or lemony goodness, then this chapter is not for you. And there's some gore in Nagi's fantasy. Also contains a joke sketch about Girl-on-Guy rape, which in the real world is a serious issue and NOT a laughing matter. But this isn't the real world, so laugh as much you want – we're all sick bastards (or bitches, as the case may be) at heart, after all.**

* * *

**Last time on 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

* * *

_"Ehhh, maybe." Miki shrugged. "Definitely 'or something', though. I mean, I probably wouldn't have intervened personally, but I imagine that Izumi, at least, probably would've done something. Eh, Izumi?"_

_"Eh, Miki," Miss Segawa responded, nodding in the affirmative._

_"Right, and if not her, then Nagi," Risa gestured towards the blonde, who in response flipped her the bird without even looking away from the hi-def plasma screen flashing with the sublimely detailed and brilliantly rendered visual stimuli being presented by the game she was playing. Risa ignored this. Continuing: "and if not Nagi, then Isumi or Sakuya," she looked over at the two, who appeared to be busy comparing notes. On what, she was not sure, though she certainly had her suspicions... "Right...?"_

_Miki shrugged nonchalantly. "Meh."_

* * *

**Now, for the next installment of 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

.

.

.

**Chapter Eleven:**

**Will You Sleep (Over) With Me?**

Izumi puffed up her cheeks cutely. She turned to face Risa. "Sooo..."

"Yeah?"

"What are we gonna do about Hayata-kun?"

Risa cocked an eyebrow, petting the hair of the unconscious butler. "Whaddya mean by that?"

"Well, I mean, we can't just leave him where he is, no matter how nice I'm sure it must be to rest with one's face in your lap."

Risa chuckled at the girl's Freudian Slip. "Ah, Izumi..." she murmured wistfully, "Don't you _ever_ change," she said, playfully mussing up her friend's hair.

"Nyeee~ehh!" Izumi squealed, futilely attempting to push the hand away from her hair. "_Miki_! Risa is picking on me!"

"Is that so?" Miki smirked. "Well, then, I suppose I'll just have to see what I can do..." She then joined Risa in messing with their friend's hair.

"Waaahh~! Stop ganging up on me!" Izumi whined cutely.

"Never!" Risa stuck out her tongue at her friend.

"Yeah," Miki agreed, "You're _way_ too much fun to tease."

"Meany-heads!"

* * *

While the Three Stooges were off being the Three Stooges, the Secret-Wife-Trio (Nagi, Isumi, and Sakuya) were off in the corner, plotting. Or, to be more accurate, Isumi and Sakuya were plotting, while Nagi continued to immerse herself in the role of Samus Aran, blasting Space Pirates to Kingdom Come.

_'Die, alien scum! I am the beautiful and brilliant badass bounty hunter, bane of evil! I eat low-grade chumps like you for breakfast!'_ The pigtailed blonde cackled, indulging in violent fantasies as she breezed through the obligatory lava section for the third time in that play-through. Backtracking was a bitch, even in the best of games, and every ardent gamer will find themselves, from time to time, mentally flaying the skin of uninspired game designers who keep reusing the same fucking set-piece a hundred fucking times – I mean, it's very pretty, excellently thematic and all, but FUCK I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE **HATE **_**HATE **_backtracking and God alive, we get it already, brown gives you guys a collective hard-on, but it is absolutely no fun what-so-fucking-ever to navigate a never-ending labyrinth of virtually identical sepia-toned rooms and by Jove stop with the motherfucking BACKTRACKING!

Ahem. _Any_ways, Sakuya, having changed into a nice not-shredded top was talking to Isumi, who was wearing the same tattered outfit she had been dressed in when she first arrived two chapters ago.

Sakuya, taking a sip of her grape juice, sighed. "What are we gonna do about Ayasaki-sama?" She pondered aloud.

"I do not know," Isumi answered. "But we cannot allow _those three_—" she shot a venomous glare at Izumi, Miki, and Risa, "—to have their way with him."

"Hear, hear!" Sakuya agreed. "I'd toast to that. We wives 'ave gotta stick together, after all!"

"Indeed. We have not even had a chance to consummate the union yet..." Isumi trailed off meaningfully.

The two blushed as naughty images flooded their heads.

* * *

[Narrio Wakamator: "Within the depths of Isumi Saginomiya's psyche."]

* * *

CRACKSNAP.

"You've been a bad boy, Hayate-sama," Isumi, clad in a midnight-black leather dominatrix outfit, said sternly, brandishing a riding crop. "Bad boys need to be _punished_.

The blue-haired lad in question whimpered through the ball-gag in his mouth, feeling the pain from the stinging marks that littered his back. "AHMMMODDAMADMOY!" He squealed, his words muffled to the point of incomprehensibility.

Isumi took a leisurely step forward, casually planting a bare foot -STOMP- on the young man's penis. Hearing his muffled moans and feeling the fleshy appendage begin to swell and stiffen, she sneered. His member futilely pushed upwards against the weight behind the medium's foot, attempting to rise up and stand proudly erect. But Isumi did not allow it to do so – instead, she brought her toes up to _glans penis_ -positioning her big toe and second toe on either side of the _meatus_- and pinched them together, squeezing the organ and stimulating the nerves therein contained.

Hayate gasped, swooning slightly as he felt himself burst all over the girl's toes.

Isumi laughed menacingly. "Oh, you have been a very, **very** naughty boy, Hayate-sama."

SNAPCRACK. CRACKSNAP.

* * *

Isumi nodded eagerly to herself. "Yes, yes, we most certainly cannot let Hayate-sama slip out of our fingers. His mistress sorely needs to punish him," she decided.

Sakuya eyed Isumi curiously, before shrugging. "Eh, I 'spose..." she said reluctantly, "... If that's what's gotta be done to keep him from running off with someone else, then so be it." She turned to face her cousin, Nagi. "Whaddya think, eh, Nagi?"

"Hn," the pigtailed blonde grunted, too enraptured in her videogame-based fantasies to give an answer with any sort of proper elocution. "Eh, Sak'ya-sis," she finally muttered in what could be loosely interpreted as approval or agreement.

"Well, if you say so, Nagi-chan."

Inwardly, Isumi cheered.

Nagi simply mumbled.

"Meh."

* * *

[Narrio Wakamator: "Meanwhile, inside Nagi's imagination..."]

* * *

On the Galactic Federation's top secret research vessel, "The Bottle Ship", in Sector 3 (the so-called 'Pyrosphere') Nagi Sanzen'in -bounty hunter extraordinaire[**1**]- was facing off against a newly matured accidental clone of her mortal foe: "The Cunning God of Death" and leader of the Space Pirate military, Ridley, last of the space dragons.

She was shocked and horrified when she saw him—no, IT, appear in the chamber.

It was supposed to be dead. She had killed It.

She had watched It draw Its terminal breath.

How could It have survived the utter annihilation of Zebes?

Behind her green-tinted visor, Nagi's eyes went wide. Her frame began trembling, though it was imperceptible beneath the layers of her Chozo Power Suit – under the auto-cycling self-regenerating energy shielding, the folded plates of the tempered space-mithril armor, and the organic-cybernetic cold-fusion-powered exoskeleton.

Her breathing froze.

Unbidden, scenes of slaughter and bloodshed -traumatic, long-repressed memories- flashed before her eyes. She saw her parents. Dead. Disembowled. Their... their bodies... Their bodies were surrounded by heaped up mounds of charred, dessicated carcasses – all that remained of the inhabitants of the Federation mining colony K-2L, save for a lone child.

Amidst the burning buildings, reeking of death and ash, stood some... some great, horrible THING. She saw It. Nagi Sanzen'in, age three, sole remaining human alive on K-2L, saw That Thing crouched among the mutilated bodies. She beheld the grotesque, gangly form of that monstrous demon hunched over what was left of Virginia and Rodney Aran: her mother and father. Its elongated, beak-like snout -lined with massive, stained fangs dripping with gory, oozing, black slaver- was coated with dark, dried blood.

A strangled cry escaped her lips, and That Thing looked up, noticing her for the first time. It eyed her appraisingly, Its great, narrowed eyes lamp-like and shining yellow. Its gaze betrayed That Thing to be more than some mere feral predator. They radiated with a secret intelligence: a sophisticated yet beastly intellect that was cruel and sadistic beyond measure.

It stretched forth Its long, bony arms -palms face up- in a gruesome, perverse mockery of supplication. Clutched in those gnarled, chitinous claws -those wicked, ripping talons- was a macabre offering of a revolting, spooling mass of rancid, scarlet-pink flesh.

Her parents' entrails, she noted dully, morbidly.

Her stomach churned, even as That Thing cracked open its hideous, sneering maw. It began to speak. Its voice was harsh, Its words condescending and hateful. The sound of it was like the rumbling of boulders, the crashing of gravel, and the hissing of acrid smoke – it made her wish to wail in agony and clap her hands upon her ears for fear that they should begin to bleed, or worse. But That Thing's luminescent orbs held her paralyzed, ensorcelled in a tightly binding spell of absolute terror.

She knew not if That Thing was truly speaking; for certainly though she heard clearly the sounds emanating from Its parted, reptilian lips, they were incomprehensible to her mind in its present state, and she could assign no human meaning to the individual syllables. But although she could not at first understand what That Thing was saying, in her heart she held with iron certainty the conviction that Its every shrill yet guttural pronouncement was as a multitude of blasphemies shouted unto the heavens in an unholy chorus.

When her senses at last caught up with her, restoring her linguistic faculties and informing her that That Thing was, in fact, speaking her language, she learned that this guess was not too far off the mark.

"—and fear me, fool child!" It jeered, taunting her. "Go, now! Go! Run! Run like all others! Run and flee and hide and pray that I do not find thee, pitiful hatchling!" It crowed with a harsh, deafening cackle. "Yes! Yes! Do as one who is properly wise, unlike those other rats—" It made a sweeping gesture with Its overlong forelimbs, indicating the heaped corpses of the fallen colonists, "—and save thyself to die another day! Run from me, thou whelp! Glorious, magnificent, me, before whom even the greatest and mightiest armies in all of Creation retreat! All tremble at the sight of my godly visage and pray to me for mercy!

"So who art thou to differ? A child shouldst heed the words of the wise! Surely, thou hast some greater modicum of sense than thy suicidal kin, for thou art the last alive!" It laughed shrilly, as if at some wonderfully sublime jest. "Fight me not! Resist me not! Simply run and hide and extend thy life however thou must! I might even show thee what ye lesser lifeforms might call 'pity', if thou shouldst choose to acknowledge the futility of thy kind's travails and renouncest thy misled pride!" It declared madly. "For I -the greatly, infinitely wise and beautiful I- am not a cruel god. Nay, shouldst thou amuse me, I might choose to spare thee thy worthless life. A greater boon I rarely grant to even my most faithful followers! So bow! Bow and worship me, if thou wilt not flee and yet wishest still not to die! Me, the perfectly holy and powerful Lord Ridley!"

Nagi whimpered as That Thing reached forth and placed a slimy, grasping hand and gently -by Its standards- pushed her face down, forcing it deep into the damp, bloody earth, staining her body all over with the lifeblood of everyone she had ever known in her short life.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" That Thing howled uproariously, "GYAAA-HAHAHAHAHA~~~! Worship me, base scum, as thou shouldst! Defy me not! Oppose me not! Tremble in awe at my terrible splendor! Fight me not! Resist me not! For I say unto thee in most generous edification: My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail is a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath **DEATH**!" [**2**]

As It spoke that final word, the scene shifted. No longer was she in the burnt and tumbling ruins of her first home. Now she was in her second home, longest and truest and nearest to her heart: Zebes, where she had been raised and trained by Old Bird and Gray Voice, two wise members of the hyper-advanced, birdlike Chozo race. Now she was deep beneath the planet's surface, in the dragon's lair within the fiery, molten heart of Norfair.

This, she realized, was a memory far more recent, one still fresh in her mind. She was standing tall despite the grievous pain that wracked her body. The plating of her Power Suit was dented and dirtied. Her arms and legs were aching and weary, and her every breath was a laborious ordeal, her lungs vehemently protesting every expansion and contraction, her hoarse burning throat begrudging her each inhalation and exhalation.

Before her lay the broken, bloody corse of That Thing, spine arched backwards in the agony of its final moments, Its visceral organs and lifeblood spilling forth onto the hard ground from a massive, crooked, vertical gash in Its underbelly. It was the lifeless carcass of That Thing, that abominable heartless devil which had destroyed everything she had ever known. Everyone she had ever loved.

She watched, remote and detached, like a spectator in her own body, as she stamped about, knee-deep in the slain bio-form's spilled guts, firing missile after missile after missile into the rent armor of That Thing's abdomen. For every detonation she fired another missile, the blasts cracking bones like bent titanium girders and spraying bloody chunks of putrid fat and muscle and epithelial tissue every which way. Its body was cold and dead. It had been so for several minutes, now, but still she would continue to attack until long after she had completely depleted her ammunition.

At long last, she had finally revenged herself upon that thing, eliminating a dire threat to galactic peace in the process, but it was a hollow victory. Her loved ones were still all dead, and the memories of what had happened on that day would haunt her to the grave. She knew as much, and had known for a long time. She understood that she might very well never find peace. A part of her still refused to come to terms, to accept what had happened.

She had enough experience with shell-shocked veterans and traumatized victims of pirate raids alike to know the issues, the complexes that took root in such troubled minds. Survivor's guilt, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, panic attacks, nervous breakdowns, bouts of psychosis, eating disorders, depression, insomnia, nightmares, hallucinations... she had seen so many others go through these things countless times before. More than that, she had suffered through many of those things herself.

At last, the hallucinations ended, and Nagi -her body wracked with pain- watched distantly as That Thing, born anew in part due to her own actions, prepared to deal unto her the killing blow that would put her out of her misery for once and for all. Her resolve to fight broken, her power suit deactivated and phased out of this dimension of existence. Her heart was heavy with despair and dread. Her eyes were dead and unblinking. Suicide by cop, she decided, did not seem like such a bad way to end it all...

Then That Thing opened Its jaws, displaying new teeth sharper than the accursed swords of Muramasa Sengo and whiter than the pure driven snow in the mountains of Hokkaido at wintertime. From the murky, black depths of Its throat came a violently waxing fiery glow. Her eyes widened. Fear colder than zero kelvin pierced her gut like the spear of Izanagi pierced the earth – one giving birth to the island chain of _Yamato_, and the other a desperate cry.

It started low, a rumbling in her abdomen. It rose, moving from her diaphragm into her chest. It resonated within her lungs, rebounding off the walls of the thoracic cavity. There it became a movement of air, exhaled up through the larynx. It pushed past the vocal folds, causing them to oscillate noisily. There it gained sound. It moved further up, humming and rushing past the epiglottis and the pharynx. In her mouth, her tongue and palate molded it, shaping it into distinct syllables. Then it burst forth from her lips, a final plea for salvation and asylum.

"HAAA-YAAA-TEEEEE!"

Her cry echoed in the air, resounding throughout the chamber, racing out to the farthest reaches of the Bottle Ship.

That Thing paused briefly, uncertain what to think about the strange call this creature before It had just made. It was confused. Indeed, for although It had the shape of That Thing's body, along with Its raw intellect, it was not_ truly_ That Thing. Genetically, It was identical to what had once been the Space Pirate Commander Ridley, but It had none of Ridley's memories. None of Ridley's experience.

Physically, It was a fully grown space dragon. Despite being physically mature, psychologically It was scarcely even a month old. Everything was new and strange to It. If It had any soul at all, it was not the soul of the Cunning God of Death. It was not Ridley. It was but a confused toddler acting solely on Its instincts. Admittedly, they were very violent instincts, but that was simply an inherent part of Its nature as an apex predator. Ridley, the Ridley who had led the attack on K-2L, had acted as It had for Its own amusement, torturously slaughtering the colonists one by one out of sadistic cruelty. Ridley, That Ridley, the Ridley who had died by her hand in the scorching bowels of Zebes, had understood fully the concept of morality, and had flouted it with perfect understanding of what It was doing – knowing, but not caring, about what was considered right and wrong.

But This Thing, this... Not-Ridley... was as ignorant of good and evil as any month-old human child. It went after her out of all the others -choosing to pursue her rather than any of the members of the Galactic Federation 07th Platoon- not for any profound or wicked reason – not out of fear or a desire for revenge. Nay, It went after her because she was the shiniest, most vibrantly-colored of those strange, bipedal, armored primates which had appeared so suddenly in Its Home, seemingly out of nowhere (to It, which had never been anywhere other than Its Home upon the Bottle Ship where It had been Born, the concepts of outer space and space travel would have been utterly mind-blowing and -of course- completely beyond Its infantile comprehension).

And so, like any baby worth its salt when confronted with something novel, Not-Ridley wanted to learn everything It could about what had caught Its attention in the only ways It understood: poking it, sniffing it, licking it, sticking it in Its mouth, sticking it in some other orifice, and taking it apart (though the last one was usually an accident caused by underestimating Its own strength relative to the durability of whatever It was examining – at least until It grew older and more intelligent). Nobody (save perhaps M.B., and possibly also Madeline Bergman) was aware of this, however.

From the side, beyond either one's peripheral vision, there came a blazing lance of ionized plasma like a brilliant, focused beam of light. It struck Not-Ridley in the chest, scorching the scales upon Its breast, causing It to shriek cacophonously in agony.

As one, she and It traced the trajectory of the energized projectile back to its source. At the far side of the platform stood erect a figure clad in the blue and gray powered armor uniform of a Galactic Federation trooper. He (for the figure's insignia and build identified them as a male member of the 07th Platoon) hefted in his arms a not-at-all excessively phallic, segmented, irregular, rectangular prism of gleaming-black heat-shielded metal half as long as he was tall. This was connected -via a thick, tangled mass of heavy duty cords and wires- to a cumbersome-looking backpack-mounted power cell. The mouth of this wondrous example of human ingenuity in the field of killing the fuck out of shit was the bright orange and crimson of nearly-molten metal, and the convenient charge meter on the side of the weapon -where it could be easily seen by pretty much everyone but the weapon's operator- had only a sliver of its length illuminated, indicating that the weapon's power levels were just barely hovering above zero. It would be at least ten seconds before the weapon could build up a sufficient charge to fire another shot.

Nagi's armored rescuer spoke. His voice was one that was quite familiar to her, and from the inflection of his words she could easily envision the bright, heart-quickening smile that was no doubt dancing upon his lips.

"Remember me, princess?"

She smiled in spite of herself – in spite of the paralyzing dread with which she had been overcome only moments earlier, she laughed. She laughed, and the spell laid upon her soul by That Thing's ghastly presence was broken. Those words gave her hope. They gave her strength.

9...

"Hayate..." The name was whispered under her breath, but he seemed to have heard it, for he gave her a traditional Federation salute (an impressive feat, considering the fact that his plasma rifle normally had to be held with both hands since it was closer to a man-portable artillery piece than a gun, both in size and firepower). Seeing this, Nagi felt her courage spring anew, burning determination blossoming with her breast. Her fighting spirit was rekindled into a roaring blaze.

8...

With an ancient Chozo battlecry upon her lips -words which had not been heard by any living creature for millennia, shouted on high in the fervent exultations of one who glories in victory upon the field of battle and lives for conquest, bringing sword and flame and shadow of death to their enemies- she leaped into battle, Power Suit reappearing and reactivating, catching a distracted Not-Ridley from behind with a baker's dozen of high explosive projectiles. It screeched as the heat and shockwaves from the rapid, successive impacts-followed-by-detonations of thirteen consecutive missiles washed over Its back, bruising Its spine and searing Its deceptively durable leathery wings.

7...

6...

Snarling, the Interloper temporarily forgotten, Not-Ridley whirled around to face Nagi who quickly jumped back beyond the reach of Its retaliatory swipe. Artlessly, rabidly, It charged her. Its jagged, dagger-like teeth and foaming, ravening jaws were snapping and snarling. Its arms were flailing wildly; long, lethally-curving claws scored the platform with deeply fluted gouges and sent up bright, crackling sparks with each frenzied stroke. Unlike the original Ridley, this clone had no understanding of real life-or-death combat, and Its clumsy bestial stance had dozens of painfully obvious openings at any given moment.

5...

4...

Nagi shook her head in disappointment. With little to no effort, she deftly side-stepped Not-Ridley's reckless attack, sending another brace of missiles into Its side. When It spun to face her, she leaped over It, gracefully somersaulting through the air and landing behind It. When Not-Ridley raised Its segmented, prehensile, spike-tipped tail in an attempt to skewer her like a hotdog at a campfire weinie roast, she locked, loaded, and launched a motherfucking super missile right up Its goddamn ass at point-blank range. She then quickly darted off to one side, narrowly avoiding getting covered with charred, gory bits of draconic cloaca.

3...

2...

Not-Ridley howled, screaming oaths of brutal vengeance upon that damnable Orange One and all like her in Its wordless, invented, infantile tongue. It spun about once again, mouth wide-open and frothing with superheated plasma, only to find Itself face to visored face with the Interloper -one Hayate Ayasaki- pointing a fully (re-)charged plasma rifle into Its mouth.

**1.**

"_'Say hello to my little friend,'_" the young man quoted, executing a flawless impression of a certain silver screen crime-lord's most (in-)famous line as he depressed the trigger of his weapon's firing mechanism.

Not-Ridley, seeing Its regrettably short life flashing before Its eyes, recalled the final words of one Lyle Smithsonian. Despite not actually understanding the meaning behind the man's words, some part of It found them most beautifully suited to this situation; an eloquent expression of the futility of mortal endeavors and a brilliant, enduring legacy of the man and all that he stood for.

"Ohhhhhhh... **SHIT-PISSING-CUNT-FUCKER!-!**'"

A second later, with a blinding flash and a deafening thunderclap, It was dead, Its brains having been flash-fried and blown out the back of its be-crested skull by a triply hyper-charged shot from an NRA nut's illegally overclocked wet dream.

Moments later, Nagi Sanzen'in (with Samus Aran's bodacious figure) had stripped her rescuer of his armor and sent her own Power Suit into her soft science-fiction technobabble hammerspace, leaving herself wearing only her skintight blue Zero Suit.

She grinned lustily, walking up to Hayate, slowly swaying her hips side to side with each step. Without so much as a second thought, she pushed him down onto the floor. Getting on all fours, she leaned over him, her large breasts hanging pendulously and swinging slightly this way and that way, stretching the space age spandex (with built-in bio-cybernetic interface) of her Zero Suit.

She bent her arms, splaying them out to either side as she lowered her arguably indecently-clad torso to touch against his own, sensuously rubbing herself against his uniform. Giggling naughtily to herself, she brought her mouth to his neck, nibbling at the skin of his adam's apple.

"Ahh~hn..." Hayate groaned. "N-no, Princess, why... are you do_ing_—" he squeaked as she nipped at an exceptionally sensitive spot, "—this?"

Nagi leered at him. She smiled deviously, saying: "Because I owe you my **life**," she cooed sultrily, "and I _never_ let a debt go unpaid..." She moved her lips lower, deftly unclasping the buttons on the man's uniform with a combination of teeth and tongue-work. When she finished unbuttoning his shirt, she cast it off of him with her hands, before removing his belt. Then, once more using her mouth, she unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers.

After manually pulling off both those and his boxers, she pressed a button on the wrist of her Zero Suit, causing it to retract into a wristband, leaving her as naked as the day she was born. Finally, without further ado, she lined up their hips and impaled her burning, starving sex upon his stiff, pulsating member.

Citing some bull-shit invented Chozo tradition of life debts and how to properly repay them, she began moving her hips up and down as they moaned in the overwhelming ecstasy of carnal unity...

* * *

Nagi blushed, giggling in a perverted manner as she absentmindedly listened to Isumi and Sakuya discussing The Plan, or as they liked to call it, 'Operation Ero Ero Sleepover of Destined Romance'.

"Okay," Sakuya began, placing a piece of paper on the floor between herself and Isumi, "Here's the plan..."

* * *

[Narrio Wakamator: "Meanwhile, inside Sakuya's imagination..."]

* * *

"Oy! Fu! Kogarashi! Oroshiko! Arashimaru! Tsumujikaze! Takeshi![**3**] Geddown 'ere! 'S'time fer breakfast, you brats!" A middle-aged women who looked rather like how Sakuya might imagine herself in twenty-odd -maybe thirty- years or so, shouted up the stairs. Her hair was short and loose, as always, and she was dressed in modestly stylish and functional casual wear. The only big differences in her appearance from the teenaged Sakuya were her increased height and significantly more... well... _voluptuous_ figure.

A sound like a stampede emanated from the upper floors of the manor. With a torrent of thudding, shoeless feet and playful, childish shouting, they came.

Six children, ranging in age from little five year old Takeshi to the sixteen-and-a-half year old Fu, rushed down the stairs, crowding against one another and vying for the coveted title of 'first one to the dining room'. Kogarashi, a handsomely athletic fourteen year-old boy and VIP member of his school's track team -best known to his siblings as "Bottomless Pit"- had been the reigning champion for nearly three years running, but the nine year old fraternal twins Arashimaru (a somewhat bookish but nonetheless active lad) and Tsumujikaze (a hot headed, competitive tomboy-in-training) were working together to box him in, running interference for the others in exchange for a portion of the "winnings"

Fu (a lovely, lively lass of sixteen-going-on-seventeen with light gray-bordering-on-white hair and deep, azure eyes) was at the back of the pack, ladylike and patient, dressed in an immaculate Hakuō uniform with her shoulder-length hair neatly tied into a ponytail. She was smiling demurely

Kogarashi, with short black hair like Uncle Asato and forest green eyes, was, as stated earlier, being boxed in by the twins. His school uniform was wrinkled and, while ostensibly clean, still distinctly untidy. His gym bag was slung over his shoulders and his customary grin had been replaced with frustration at his situation.

Oroshiko (a rambunctious, purple-haired prankster of twelve with lime-green eyes who idolized her mother), with Kogarashi unable to advance, was in the lead, her hair -short and free, like her mom's- waving about in her wake.

Tsumujikaze and Arashimaru (the former with blue hair and eyes like her father, the latter with gray hair and green eyes like his mother) were doing their damnedest to impede their older brother and keep him from getting first dibs on whatever was for breakfast. Kogarashi, despite his lithe physique, was a total pig, and there was no way they were going to let him take all the best stuff before they even got to the table. With that said, it was a difficult task. They were dressed in matching shirts and pants.

Last but not least, Takeshi -the adorable, chubby-cheeked baby of the family- was in second place, his boundless energy and ineffable enthusiasm letting him manage to consistently keep up with Oroshiko, no more a step behind her at any given moment. His big green eyes were squinted in a cute approximation of the sorts of serious expressions he had seen on adults, and his unkempt sky blue hair had clearly not been anywhere near a comb or hairbrush since the previous morning, when one of the maids had pinned him to the floor while another one had gone to work and done her best to groom his untameable thicket.

They rushed right past their mother, Sakuya, nearly bowling her over in their haste. She frowned at them for a moment before smiling and laughing. They never missed a chance to eat their father's cooking, if any of them could help it.

"Oh my, they're definitely lively this morning, aren't they?" Said father spoke – appearing suddenly behind his wife, as was his wont.

Unperturbed, Sakuya Aizawa-Ayasaki smiled, turning to greet her husband. "Indeed they are, _dar~ling_~," she cooed, giving him a kiss. He was a good head-and-two-thirds taller than her, so she had to stand up on the very tips of her toes to reach his mouth.

Her lips brushed against his, leaving a light smudge of lipstick on his mouth.

She felt something bristly scratching against her cheeks. She drew back, a look of mock-betrayal adorning her face. "Yeeuu~uuccch!" she teased, lightly punching her beloved in the shoulder. "What the heck! You haven't shaved!"

Hayate chuckled, rubbing his chin appraisingly, feeling the coarse hairs against the palm of his hand. "Yes, I suppose I haven't, yet, have I?" he mused. His eyes twinkled merrily. "But you like it like that, don't you dear?" he leaned in close.

Sakuya smirked, idly counting the barely visible light blue hairs on her husband's face, no longer so boyish and bishōnen as it had been when he was sixteen – now it was more chiseled, more defined, and more manly – fitting more closely into the realm of _rugged_. Part of her had been disappointed the day she had realized her darling Hayate (or Ayasaki-sama, as she called him in her mind and in bed) could no longer pass for a girl, but she had quickly decided that he was no less handsome, and that his newfound rugged masculine looks could get her motor running just as well.

"Yeah, a little," she conceded, "It's a sexy look on you, to be sure, but it's no good for kissing." She waved a hand dismissively. "Tickles too much," she finished by way of explanation.

"Ah," Hayate muttered, scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Is that so? It tickles, does it?" he chortled mischievously, brusquely planting a kiss on his wife's cheek, causing her to giggle and squirm in ineffectual protest.

"St-stop_pit_!" she squealed softly, playfully beating against her husband's chest, feeling the hard, toned muscles rippling beneath his shirt. "Haya_te_, that **tickles**~!"

"You never complain about that in bed," the blue-haired man observed. "... as a matter of fact, I seem to remember a certain someone _begging_ to be tickled _down there_" he gestured meaningfully towards the zipper of her pants, "just last week..."

"That was different!" Sakuya protested.

"That isn't what you said the morning after, when you had me do _That _to you before shaving, just to see how it stacked up to the feather... And if I remember correctly, you seemed to rather enjoy it..." He adopted a thinking pose. "How'd you put it, again? ... Ah yes, 'like a circus in your—"

"—Ko, you pussy! Quit being a sore loser and _gimme back my **waffles**_!" came the sound of Oroshiko's voice from the dining room, "I won first dibs, fair and square!"

"Mwuh-mwunh~! Mwoo'mo'uwwy schee'ud!" came Ko's muffled retort, "Mwoo 'a'em m'ang uhm'ummee!"

[Narrio Wakamator: "Translation: 'Nuh-uh~! You totally cheated! You had them gang up on me!'"]

"You're just upset I outsmarted you, _Bottomless Pit_!"

There was the sound of a scuffle breaking out. Chairs squeaked against the polished hardwood floor as they were abruptly pushed back to let their occupants stand up. Young voices shouted in a cacophony of taunts and boasts and cheers and jeers. Faintly could be heard the muted sound of bare knuckles smacking against cloth and skin as the fray heated up.

Hayate sighed, a smile saying something like 'oh-those-kids-are-just-so-much-trouble-and-even-though-I-wouldn't-have-it-any-other-way-and-love-them-dearly-I-still-wish-they-could-behave-for-even-ten-minutes' forming on his face.

Sakuya, pouting that their fun had been so rudely interrupted, nodded in agreement with this. Then she glowered at the large oak double-doors that led into the dining room. "Those brats're dead..." she growled darkly.

There were very few things that could get Sakuya truly pissed. Call her a whore or otherwise impugn her honor? She would just laugh it off. Embarrass her and humiliate her in public? She has Hayate to avenge her, and he does not get mad – he gets even. Disparage her cousin? She would just turn your words around on you. Insult her act? Sure, she might hold a grudge against you for a few years, but she would still be generally civil about it. Pick on, threaten, or hurt her kids? Yeah, she would have you killed, but it would mostly be out of principle.

But interrupting her Special Fun Time? Yeah, there is _no_ word in any language -mortal, infernal, or divine- to describe just how FUCKED you would be. Even if you were one of her kids. **Especially** if you were one of her kids.

With a snarl, Sakuya burst through the door into the dining room. It was a wide hall, perhaps somewhat akin to _Heorot_, the legendary "Hall of the Hart" inhabited by the auld storied Dane-king Hrothgar and his most trusted warriors, if perhaps lesser in renown and distinction. It had a high, muraled ceiling supported by arching pillars which seemed to either emerge from or merge with the walls along the chamber's length. The floor was spotless and glistening, well polished but not slippery. The room was dominated by a single, elegant table of dark, stained wood long enough and sturdy enough to hold a feast for a smallish village with enough room for everyone to be seated comfortably.

One might then think that, with only six children and enough food present to comfortably feed them plus two grown adults, the dining room would seem rather empty. But that would be a mistaken assumption, for those six children were loud enough and active enough to stand in for an entire village twice over, so the hall in fact felt quite crowded when Sakuya entered.

As one, the six Aizawa-Ayasaki children (Fu, Kogarashi, Oroshiko, Arashimaru, Tsumujikaze, and Takeshi) froze up in fear. In unison, they turned to face their furious mother. Her eyes were narrowed to the point of squinting, her fists were clenched, and her lips were curled back in a barely human snarl. She looked at the scene of chaos before her, growling angrily.

Kogarashi had a black eye and boysenberry syrup dripping down the side of his left cheek. Bits of bacon and eggs were in his hair. Oroshiko had a scratch on her chin, and the top few buttons of her blouse appeared to have been roughly and carelessly undone. Both skin and cotton were covered with a sticky, yellowish substance – orange marmalade, it seemed. Both of them were standing in the middle of a circle formed by three of their four other siblings.

Takeshi, ever his mother's good little boy, quickly ran up to Sakuya and tugged at the leg of her pants. "They were being baaa~ad, Mama-tan!" He declared, pointing a chubby little finger at his two brothers and three sisters. "Ko-kyun was a piggy and stole from O-tan's plate and O-tan yelled at him and he yelled back and then they started fighting and the others di'n't do nuthin' to stop 'em!"

Sakuya absent-mindedly gave her youngest child an approving pat on the head before going to town on the others. "You _idjuts_!" she snapped, her accent slipping in her frustration.[**5**] "What've I told y'all 'bout raisin' a ruckus when yer pops an' I are talkin'!-?"

"N-n-not to do it, Ma-san," a contrite-looking Oroshiko nervously offered after a moment of awkward silence.

Sakuya nodded tersely. "Right. So WHY did ya snots decide to do this when ya KNEW how mad I'd get?"

"They cheated—!" Kogarashi began, pointing at Oroshiko and the twins, only to get a harisen SMACK upside the head.

"What the heck!-?" Sakuya shouted, "I don't care 'bout that! Yer older'n 'em, Ko! Ya gotta act responsible an' mature! An' throwin' a tantrum like some spoiled brat ain't NEITHER o' those things! Ya dang idjut!"

"Waaahh! I'm sorry, mom!" Kogarashi flinched, cowering before his furious mother, "I promise I won't do it again!"

There was a pause. "Yeah..." Sakuya said, her voice full of menace as she glowered at her eldest son, "Ya **won't**. 'Cuz I'm s'spendin' yer 'llowance fer a month."

Oroshiko cheered silently, and their mother instantly wheeled on her.

"Don't think like you ain't in trouble too, Oro!" The purplette deflated under the heat of her mother's gaze, wincing guiltily. "Ya shouldn't've egged yer brother on like that." SMACK. "No allowance fer a month fer you, either."

Sakuya turned to face her other children. "Whaddya'll think y'all're doin', standin' there uselessly like a buncha dang idjuts?-! Get yer arses goin' 'fore ya'll're late fer school, dang it!" she snapped.

With a multitude of squeaked 'yessum's, 'yessir's, and 'aye-aye's, the kids scurried off to get ready, leaving their mother alone in the dining room.

Looking at the mess before her, Sakuya sighed and clapped twice, summoning one of her maids who appeared before her in a puff of smoke.

BAMF.

"Take care o' this mess, will ya?" Sakuya told the servant once the smokescreen had dissipated.

The maid nodded. "Of course, milady."

Then she disappeared in another puff of smoke.

BAMF.

A pause.

Seconds turned to minutes.

Sakuya waited impatiently, tapping her foot on the floor with a tempo of once per second, keeping a mental tally of the time elapsed. Because for every tap of her foot, another yen was subtracted from the maid's paycheck.

BAMF. BAMF. BAMF. BAMF. BAMF.

In rapid succession, five maids appeared, each one with her own puff of smoke accompanying her arrival. Sakuya nodded, pleased that they had finally arrived.

She then turned and left, matters of her own needing to be attended to.

Without further ado, the quintet of maids went to work.

* * *

Back in the world of the living, Sakuya was explaining her plan to Isumi.

"—and then the refitted low-flying crop-duster will spell out the location of the boudoir, where he'll find a pair of panties from each of us. Each pair will have one third of a message encoded using an encryption algorithm to which he will have the key written on the back of that rent-a-minister's business card. And by arranging the underwear in the right order, going by size from smallest to largest -Nagi's, then yours, then mine- he'll get a message telling him to drink the glass of water (secretly laced with Spanish Fly) that'll be on top of the dresser and then meet us in _That Room_—"

"—and then we rape him?" Isumi interjected in hopeful supposition for the eighth time since they had started planning.

Sakuya sighed long-sufferingly and shook her head. "No, 'sumi."

Miss Saginomiya (secretly Missus Saginomiya-Ayasaki) frowned. "Why not? If the aphrodisiac works, then would that not be the ideal time to force ourselves upon Hayate-sama?"

Sakuya rubbed her forehead, groaning. "No," she said, "'Cuz like I've said the last seven times you've asked, the objective of 'Operation Ero Ero Sleepover of Destined Romance' isn't to rape Ayasaki-sama, no matter _how_ tempting that may be..."

She trailed off, a bit of drool escaping her lips.

A pause.

Blink.

Blink. Blink.

Blink?

Isumi cocked her head to the side. She stared blankly, uncomprehendingly at her fellow secret wife. "What? ... but then what _is_ the true objective, and how would dosing him with such a powerful aphrodisiac be conducive to accomplishing it?" she inquired intelligently.

Sakuya rolled her eyes. "The objective is to make Ayasaki-sama WANT to be married to us. So we drug him up to make him more susceptible to our feminine wiles so we can seduce him. Then, when he eventually comes to his senses -hopefully well after the deed has been done- and starts to freak out (and we all know he will, because God_ knows _he's just so dang irrationally paranoid about making girls "unmarriageable" – whatever the heck _that_ means), we can reassure him and tell that he's already legally married to us, so, like, no harm no foul, y'know?"

Isumi screwed up her eyes in a contemplative expression, mulling over this. After a minute or so, she said, "... but would that not be considered rape?"

"Nah," Sakuya waved a hand up and down in a dismissive fashion, making sure to give the appendage back to Nagi when she was done with it. "He'd be drugged up when consenting," she said this with certainty, as if it was a foregone conclusion that Hayate would be unable to say 'no' to them should they go through with their little plan, "so if anything that would only be date-rape—"

"—Date-rape is still totally rape, you know—" Nagi muttered under her breath, but it was either unheard or ignored by her cousin.

"—and besides that, marriage is sorta _like_ consent," Sakuya reasoned.

Isumi frowned. "That is peculiar. I was under the impression that Hayate-sama did _not_ consent to the marriage. In fact, was not informing him of his new marital status the **purpose** of our plan?"

Sakuya shrugged. "Well, sure, but I mean..."

"And is not impairing an individual's judgement with a drug and then performing sexual acts with them while they are under the influence of such drugs -as your plan entails- considered date-rape? And is not date rape still rape?"

Sakuya scratched the back of her neck sheepishly. "Ah, maybe, but... like... my point is..."

"And, keeping in mind that your plan involves date-rape (implying that we can -and will- be raping Hayate-sama to achieve our objective) can you truly, honestly say that we could NOT accomplish our objective by raping him?" She concluded in her normal tone – meaning she spoke quietly and sedately.

"Yes. We can, and we will." Sakuya said stubbornly.

"Is that 'yes we can and will rape him?'"

"No."

"Awww..." Isumi pouted. "Not even a little?"

Sakuya shook her head. "No, absolutely—"

"—Sure, why not," Nagi said, interrupting her cousin with a shrug. "But no further than second base, because I promised Hamster that she could break him in as long as she and her 'harem'," she made air-quotes, "give me highest priority when it comes to using Hayate."

Sakuya blinked. "Eh? Harem? Isn't that a house where wives and concubines are kept?"

"In this case I think she means more like 'a social group of females, as elephant seals, accompanied or followed by one fertile male who denies other males access to the group', or maybe in the sense of 'an individual's wives and concubines collectively,'" Isumi suggested.

"Oh."

"Yeah," Nagi sniggered, "The dummy was delusional and obsessed with building a harem for Hayate. I felt sorry for her—"

[Narrio Wakamator: "A lie."]

"—so I decided to throw her a bone—"

[Narrio Wakamator: "Another lie."]

"—I mean, like anyone would ever actually agree to share Hayate—"

[Narrio Wakamator: "And a misled, inaccurate assumption."]

"—you guys know what I mean?"

Isumi and Sakuya stared at Nagi.

"I mean, aside from us, of course!" The Sanzen'in heiress quickly amended her prior statement, sweating nervously. "After all, it's not like I'm plotting to keep him all to myself, or anything!"

Sakuya, satisfied with Nagi's explanation, nodded sadly. "That's a real pity – about Hamster-chan, I mean," she commented sympathetically, "It's always the nice ones who go completely batshit..."

* * *

Chiharu "Haru-san" Harukaze, from her hiding spot underneath the floorboards, frowned. _'This does not bode well,_ she thought worriedly. _'If Sanzen'in-san doesn't believe Nishizawa-san's plan to be possible, then how might she react if and when she learns that the other girl is succeeding...?'_

This notion was troubling to Chiharu. She had already thrown in her lot with the Hamster, but Nagi was ultimately the one closest to Ayasaki – the one with the most power over his life and destiny.

If Nagi decided that she did not wish to share her crush with any others, how far might she go? What would she be willing to do in the name of keeping him all to herself?

"Haru" shivered at that thought. Nagi Sanzen'in-san was not a bad person, but she was headstrong to a fault and dangerously possessive...

_'Not good...'_

The faint sound of Isumi speaking shook the part-time maid out of her reverie.

* * *

"But what if Hamster-san is not delusional? What if she is successful?" The Saginomiya heiress inquired reasonably, "What shall you do if she raises up a seraglio of girls honestly willing to share Hayate-sama amongst themselves?"

"Haru", hidden beneath them under the floor, held her breath in anxious anticipation, dreading the Sanez'in girl's possible response.

After a pregnant pause which seemed to last an epoch to all present, Nagi blinked. Then she laughed. It was not wholly one of derision, as "Haru" had feared, but also one of amusement. The sound of it was merry and gay and high and clear. It was soft and musical, like the tinkling of silver bells upon a windchime stirred by a gentle spring breeze. Scarcely a more ladylike sound had ever been heard to come from the lips of that young, willful child.

"Heehee..." Nagi giggled. "What the heck," she shrugged, "If that girl should somehow actually manage, by some insane miracle, to pull off that crazy plan of hers, then I _suppose_ I'll just have to uphold my end of the bargain. After all, I'm not the sort of unscrupulous person to back out on an agreement for no good reason." She smiled, bringing a thumb up to point at her chest. Proudly, she declared: "I don't renege on my contracts, verbal or not!"

* * *

_Omake: Why Sleep Deprivation is Bad for the Quality of my Writing (Or: Help! Save us! The Author is Insane!)_

[Narrio Wakamator: "The following is an excerpt from a rough draft of this chapter, typed up after a particularly nasty bit of insomnia on the part of the author."]

Ahem. _Any_ways, Sakuya, having changed into a nice not-shredded top—

(BOOOOO~!)

—was talking to Isumi, who was wearing the same tattered outfit she had been dressed in when she first arrived two chapters ago.

(YAAAAAY~!)

Stop interrupting me, you fucking pervert, they're barely even past thirteen.

(I DON'T CARE!)

Goddamn pedophile.

(Hebephile, technically.)

Oh, fuck you, ya bastard. It's still creepier'n Hell.

(Prude.)

Freak!

(Repressed lolita complex!)

Pervert!

(Hypocrite!)

Go to Hell!

(Get laid!)

Simpering schizo.

(That is both inaccurate and offensive. Schizophrenia is—!)

Shut up. No one cares.

(How much longer do you intend to keep this up, anyways? It's uninspired and trite -at breast... I mean, best- and I'm not even sure who I'm supposed to be!)

I think you're supposed to be one of my muses, honestly – probably Fairy Kyuubi, if your perversion is anything to go by.

(And I'm fairly certain that none of your readers get that reference to, what, a five year old fic by an author who hasn't updated a story in over a year?—)

Yeah, it's a pity that ANBU's Mask is basically a deadfic.

(—Even if there is a certain amount of fandom-overlap, my entire persona is based off a series of running jokes and mythology gags – for the love of Naryu, this has gotta be one of the most pointless, self-indulgent sketches in the history of fanfiction. I mean, Hell! It doesn't even have any bearing on the plot!)

I hate to admit it, but I must agree with you on that. I'll be astonished if this bit makes it past the first rough draft, because it is only proof that I was far and away too fucking tired when I wrote this. Now back to the story.

.

.

.

[...] And so, like any baby worth its salt when confronted with something novel, Not-Ridley wanted to learn everything It could about what had caught Its attention in the only ways It understood: poking it, sniffing it, licking it, sticking it in Its mouth, sticking it in some other orifice, and taking it apart.

(Though the last one was usually an accident caused by underestimating Its own strength relative to the durability of whatever It was examining – at least until It grew older and more intelligent.)

Nobody—

(Save perhaps M.B., and possibly also Madeline Borgmen... Burgermeister... Boogermonkey... Barglemargle flargle flurgen... ... ... er, well, I know it definitely started with a 'B', at least... Eh? oh, alright, FINE, I'll look it up. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Ah, BERGMAN! **That's **what it was: Bergman! Madeline Bergman!)

—was aware of this, however.

... ... ... GODDAMNIT! FK, YOU ASS! YOU DID IT AGAIN!

[Narrio Wakamator: "And that is why EvilFuzzy9 needs to stop staying up all night reading fanfics and actually get the proper amount of sleep. Thank you, and good night."]

Oh screw _you_, ya mutinous bastard.

* * *

[**1**]: Samus Aran, in _Metroid_ canon, is a bounty hunter in name only, as the persons who created her did not actually completly understand what a 'bounty hunter' _was_ at the time and just thought it was a cool-sounding profession. They actually vetoed Retro Studios on having bounty collection bits in the _Prime_ games because they were shocked by the seeming-barbarism of such a practice, saying "Samus is a defender of justice" or something along those lines, if I remember correctly. Ah, Values Dissonance, is there _anything_ you can't make hopelessly convoluted?

Hahaha... *sigh*

[**2**]: It was really fun to write Ridley's dialogue for this section. I based his personality on what I remember about him from what I've read and/or heard of the Official Metroid Manga – namely, that he's a sociopathic sadist and narcissist who is either extremely insane or simply so alien in thought-process to humans that his moral code is something along the lines of Blue and Orange Morality. One thing that comes to mind is him telling Samus to treat him with respect during one of their confrontations since part of him is her mother since he ate her. Yeah.

Also: Damnit, English, you're my native fucking language! Why does it have to be so freaking confusing for me to figure out your damnable archaic _thou_ form verb conjugations? You insufferable fucking bastard! And another thing, are you a Romantic language or a Germanic one? Make up your blasted mind! A language should NOT be so fracking MPD, damnit!

Finally, the last bit of Ridley's monologue is a quote from the Badass Boast of Smaug from _The Hobbit_.

[**3**]: The names ('Fu', 'Kogarashi', 'Oroshiko', 'Arashimaru', and 'Tsumujikaze') are all wind-and-storm-themed, save for 'Takeshi'. _'Fu' _is 'wind', 'air', 'style', 'manner'. _'Kogarashi' _is 'wintry wind'. _'Oroshi'_ is 'wind from the mountains'; _'ko'_ is 'child' – a common suffix for female names. _'Arashi'_ is 'storm', 'tempest'; _'maru'_ is 'round', 'circle' – a common suffix for male names. _'Tsumujikaze' _is 'cyclone' or 'whirlwind'. Lastly, the odd one out,_ 'Takeshi'_, is 'strong' or 'good horse'.

As for Sakuya having so many kids in her fantasy, well, she's a fourteen year old who has "looking after kids" under her likes and likely no real concept of the emotional difficulties involved in raising such a large pack of brats, even _with_ servants doing most (if not all) of the housework.

[**4**]: I'm honestly not entirely certain whether or not Sakuya should have an accent here. In some scanlations of HnG that I've seen, she's had an accent of some sort, because she speaks in a Kansai dialect. But, since I suck at consistent accents, I've mostly written her with a more or less normal voice. Then, at some point, I decided to make it so that when she gets REALLY pissed, she starts gettin' all flustered an' talkin' lahk she's got sum sort o' silly durn accen' an' all dat jazz an' shi', ya know? Surta lahk she's 'agrid er summat else, 'cuz I lahk me accen's be' cannae wrah' 'em consis'en'ly werf shi' 'n' sae when Ah go all oo' wif 'em i' gess impossible ta tell wot da fug anywhat's 'sposed ta be sayin', don'chyanno.

So if Sakuya's accent seems ridiculously inconsistent during this part, it's because I decided to let my Funetik Aksent muse run wild with her and to Hell with actually trying to depict any sort of specific, realistic dialect or accent.

* * *

**A/N: Nagi's seemingly random **_**Metroid**_**-themed fantasy interlude was a really effective way to get my juices flowing for this chapter, as I was stuck on the first two scenes for a while. I think I did fairly well with the Purple(-ish) Prose in that section too, even if it did end up being rather dark. I dunno, I guess I was just trying to make a somewhat-reasonable defense for Samus seizing up in fear at the beginning of her fight with Ridley in **_**Other M**_**. Though I wonder what it says about their story-telling choices when a barely-twenty amateur writer such as myself can honestly so easily whip up a way to make her reaction to Ridley seem less jarring. Such as:**

**[The boss-fight room establishing shot with the "[sarcasm]HOLY-SHIT-WHAT-A-SURPRISE-I-MEAN-IT'S-NOT-LIKE-HE-HASN'T-APPEARED-IN-VIRTUALLY-EVERY-OTHER-FUCKING-GAME-IN-THE-SERIES[/sarcasm]" appearance of Ridley]**

**[Brief inner monologue courtesy of Samus about her childhood on K-2L with a few landscape and community-life shots]**

**[Flashback to pirate attack on settlement. Pirate ships landing, pirates exiting ships. Colonists getting slaughtered by pirates ala Bloodless Carnage or Discretion Shots or silhouettes to keep it **_**T**_**. Shot of Ridley showing up.]**

**[Brief monologue from Samus about finding everyone dead and seeing Ridley amidst the dead bodies, maybe with some sort of corpse scare scene and spooky glory shots of Ridley & Company to establish that this is Very Traumatizing for Li'l Samus.]**

**[Samus says something about the effects the attack had on her developing psyche, and, Hell, maybe even say outright that she has PTSD, or else use buzzwords like 'shell-shocked', 'horrifying', 'first-experience-with-death', and maybe even 'I-was-three-years-old-when-it-happened-and-it-was-bloody-traumatic-so-piss-off-you-insensitive-mouth-breathing-fucktards'.]**

**[Scene change to Ridley's Lair, Samus standing over the Space Pirate Commander as he (she? it?) draws his (her? its?) last breaths. Samus says something about finally avenging her parents and her colony and all the others who suffered under Ridley. Throw in a few lines about 'acceptance' and 'closure' and 'I had thought that was the end of it. ... but I was wrong' and emphasize the apparent finality of that victory on Zebes and Samus's growing horror at just what the Federation scientists had wrought through their carelessness.]**

**[**_**Now**_** feel free to do the rest of the infamous "Why is Samus scared of Ridley?" scene secure in the knowledge that even if the less narratively-inclined folks still find it silly, at least they'll actually get the REASONING behind Samus's reaction.]**

**And those of you have played **_**Metroid: Other M**_**, I am sure, can agree that something like this would have hardly seemed any more anvilicious than ever other scene in the game. I mean, I'm actually one of the people who sort of **_**liked**_** that game, and I have to say that it seemed like an odd narrative choice to explain the symbolism and significance of EVERY SCENE **_**SAVE THAT ONE**_**. Honestly, what the fuck?-! It's a bit unreasonable for the writers to expect the average players to be able to puzzle out something like the fact that the main character in your game suffers from PTSD when videogames **_**still**_** aren't considered a real artistic medium among some people or as a forum for confronting serious issues like that.**

**Er... ahem. [/end_rant]**

**I've gotta confess: I did not expect this author's note to turn into a defense-of/attack-on the storytelling choices made by Sakmoto and Team Ninja regarding **_**Other M**_**. I guess even a relatively easy-going, patient (yeah right 7,7 *rolls eyes*) person like myself is bound to occasionally burst out in fits of nerd-rage, don'chyanno.**

**On a side note, some parts of this chapter were a real bitch to write. Also, I imagine that the massive changes in mood and tone between the different character's fantasy sequences was rather jarring, and Nagi's came out so ultra long compared to the others'. Interestingly, the longest one (Nagi's) was written up first, while I was still working on the previous chapter. The next longest (Sakuya's) was written second, while I was typing up this chapter. And the shortest one (Isumi's) was written last, after the chapter had been uploaded to the _Doc Manager_ for finishing touches and proofreading (since _WordPad_ doesn't have any sort of spell-check). The wildly differing themes and atmospheres between the three different fantasy sequences work wonders for outlining the contrasts between the personalities and worldviews of the three Secret Wives. Namely: Nagi is out of touch with reality and desensitized to mature themes and violence through her mass consumption of popular media, Sakuya is (relatively) down-to-earth and realistic, and Isumi is a surprisingly kinky Cloud Cuckoo Lander.  
**

**Also, here, again, are the stats prior to updating:**

_Rated: M - English - Humor/Adventure - Chapters: 13 - Words: 70,092 - Reviews: 25 - Updated: 8-17-11 - Published: 2-27-10 - Ayumu & Hayate_

**And additionally:**

_Hits: 5,773_

_Favorites: 17_

_Alerts: 23_

_C2s: 1  
_

**Chapter Added: **_8-24-11 [August 24, 2011]_


	15. Whatever Happened to Being the MC?

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N:****Hahaha, y'know, when I said that this chapter would take longer to get done, I had not expected it to take _this_ long. Between the intertubes going down at our place for a few days (AFTER I had begun editing this chapter in Doc Manager) and kicking my job search back into high gear, it has not been a great time for working on this chapter. Also, did you know that in order to work as a clerk at a dollar store you apparently need to pass a psych evaluation? Because _I _didn't. And when I called the store on the ninth to follow up after applying there on the seventh, I discovered that I apparently didn't pass the psych evaluation.**

**Now, they might not have actually _called_ it a psych evaluation, but I definitely had to take a test that said on the first page that it was devised by psychologists at some hotshot big name university (and it sure as hell read like it, with questions like 'do you ever find yourself suddenly depressed without knowing why?' [and no, I don't – I have clinical depression, so if I start feeling down I know _damn well why_] and 'do you have issues with self-confidence?' [yes, of course I do – I'm a nearly-twenty year old young man with no job experience, no girlfriend, no social life, and unpaid college tuition, so _excuse me_ if I'm not exactly all sunshine and daisies about my prospects in life]), and the lady at the store said I failed it. They didn't exactly come out and tell me to my face that I'm crazy, but even _I_ can read between the lines well enough to know that they're thinking it. And I can't really say that I blame 'em, honestly. I mean, I'm not at 'violently deranged sociopath' levels of crazy, but _I_ sure as Hell wouldn't trust myself with a job (though that probably has more to do with the whole aforementioned neurotically low confidence thing than anything else).  
**

**That said, this chapter evolved into something a lot different than I'd envisioned. But I like it, I think. Yeah, the characters all but take a sledgehammer to the fourth wall at one point, but this is HnG – there was never a fourth wall to begin with. Somehow a surprising amount of the wordage in this chapter got dedicated to some light, impromptu Schoolgirl Gayngst from Miss Hanabishi. I dunno how that happened, except that she apparently decided to hijack my creative faculties and take 'em on a joyride. It was enjoyable to write up, I suppose, and it was a nice creative exercise; letting me explore my abilities via writing about topics I generally ignore from perspectives I rarely consider using.**

**On that note, I've found that it is, in one way, easier for me as a heterosexual male to write a lesbian's response to contact with male genitalia than it would be to write a homosexual male's response to contact with female genitals – because for the former all I've gotta do is imagine how **_**I'd**_** react to such a situation. Perhaps a bit counter-intuitive on some levels and wholly non-applicable on others, but it works for what I use it for. *Shrug***

**WARNING: By now, it should be pretty obvious that this fic contains more than a little strong language, zany antics, smut, and OOC-ness. Additionally, there is a bit of violence, and the Plot briefly rears its ugly head only to be shoved aside for crack. I swear, it's like this fic is bipolar, or something.**

**P.S.: By the way, am I the only one who has noticed that my author's notes are more-or-less getting longer with every chapter? Because it's _really_ noticeable to me, and I'm honestly not sure how it happens except that I need somewhere to vent while I'm writing and for whatever reason refuse to use a proper journal or blog like a normal person – but then again, as we've covered before, I'm not exactly a shining beacon of sanity or normality, now, am I?  
**

* * *

**Last time on 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

* * *

_"But what if Hamster-san is not delusional? What if she is successful?" The Saginomiya heiress inquired reasonably, "What shall you do if she raises up a seraglio of girls honestly willing to share Hayate-sama amongst themselves?"_

_"Haru", hidden beneath them under the floor, held her breath in anxious anticipation, dreading the Sanzen'in girl's possible response._

_After a pregnant pause which seemed to last an epoch to all present, Nagi blinked. Then she laughed. It was not wholly one of derision, as "Haru" had feared, but also one of amusement. The sound of it was merry and gay and high and clear. It was soft and musical, like the tinkling of silver bells upon a windchime stirred by a gentle spring breeze. Scarcely a more ladylike sound had ever been heard to come from the lips of that young, willful child._

_"Heehee..." Nagi giggled. "What the heck," she shrugged, "If that girl should somehow actually manage, by some insane miracle, to pull off that crazy plan of hers, then I _suppose _I'll just have to uphold my end of the bargain. After all, I'm not the sort of unscrupulous person to back out on an agreement for no good reason." She smiled, bringing a thumb up to point at her chest. Proudly, she declared: "I don't renege on my contracts, verbal or not!"_

* * *

**Now, for the next installment of 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

.

.

.

**Chapter Twelve:**

**Whatever Happened to Being the Main Character?**

Ayumu looked up at the massive, imposing, iron gates which barred their passage. Despite having been here before, she could never quite wrap her mind around the fact that this was where her Hayate-kun lived and worked.

It seemed so _alien_, this place. It was not somewhere where someone like her should be welcome. She was a perfectly bland and ordinary teenaged girl. She was not incredibly beautiful. She was not obscenely wealthy. She was not a super-genius. She was not extraordinary or outstanding in any way, save perhaps by association with those who _were_ such things – people like Nagi and Hinagiku and Hayate-kun. And, standing before those cast-iron electronic gates, she felt woefully inadequate and oh so terribly _tiny_.

She was at the border of enemy territory. Even though she had managed to extract that promise from Nagi through use of the bishōjo-inator, the girl was still a wildcard. She had money and power, but most importantly she controlled Hayate. Not only that, but the girl was proud, willful.

The way was shut. The three of them, standing there before the entrance to Nagi's realm, were as Frodo and Sam and Sméagol before _Morannon_, the Black Gate of Mordor, raised by the Dark Lord Sauron to protect his realm from attack through the gap between _Ered Lithui_ and _Ephel Duath_. It was a grand, insurmountable obstacle. They could not overcome it. They could not go through it. They could not pass into the estate by this path, for there was great, oppressive power gathered there, hidden in the shadow and the darkening dusk. The way was shut. The SP kept it, and they would not suffer the uninvited to pass through alive. The way was shut.

"Well... we're here," Ayumu said with a meek shrug. "Now what?"

Yukiji rolled her eyes. "Now we sneak inside. Duh."

Ayumu frowned and Hinagiku shook her head. "Why are you so insistent on that, Sis? I've already told you a million times that I've got Hanabishi, Asakaze, and Segawa looking out for him," said the latter, her tone betraying her impatience with the current situation.

The verdette groaned. "_Jesus Christ_..." she swore under her breath, before she spoke up and said: "Look, Hina, I _know_ those three are your most enthusiastic supporters. I _get _that they are, somehow, your best friends. I even _understand_ that, for whatever reason, you LIKE them." She stood up to her full height, towering over her sibling. "But _seriously_, Hina-sis? There is _no! __**freaking! **__**WAY! **_that you can **POSSIBLY** _not _see just how goddamn incompetent and unreliable they are!"

Hinagiku crossed her arms and turned her nose up at this with an imperious "Hmph!".

Yukiji sighed in the manner of one who has long suffered patiently some inexcusable injustice.

Ayumu furrowed her brow. _'Waa~~~aahhh, so confusing...'_ She pouted. _'Is Yukiji-san really so biased against those three...? Why?'_

She turned and eyed the elder Katsura sister in a fashion half way between 'quizzically' and 'thoughtfully' with an arched eyebrow. "Hey, Yuki-chan, are those three _really_ as bad as you say? Because I've met them before, once or twice, and I've gotta say that I'm not seeing it... I mean, they seemed okay to me..." she trailed off, inviting the older woman to give her an explanation. The response she got, however, was... a bit more **zealous** than she anticipated.

Yukiji grabbed the young blunette[**1**] by her shoulders and looked her right in the eye – her expression was one of utter seriousness. "Listen to me, Nishi-tan: those three really ARE as bad as I make them sound. Even _worse_, in fact."

Ayumu stared at Yukiji, too startled to even try to break free of the older girl's grip. She was silent.

"Those three are all but _delinquents_." the verdette teacher spat, "They're good-for-nothing nitwits of the highest order. They can't do **anything** right! When it comes to screwing around and procrastinating, there are _no others_ at their level. They are peerless idiots who unfailingly fuck up at even the **SIMPLEST** tasks!" She shook the younger lass bodily by the shoulders for a few moments before resuming her rant. "If I had one yen for every time I've had to clean up one of their messes, I'd be living it up on my own private tropical island. SERIOUSLY, there's a _DAMN_ good reason those girls are called the Three Stooges!"

Ayumu cocked her head to the side. "There's that phrase again..._ 'The Three Idiot Generals_[**2**]_'_... What does that mean?" she wondered, her face scrunched up in thought.

Yukiji's jaw just about dropped to the pavement. "EEHHHH?-! Do you mean you've never heard of the Three Stooges?-!" she exclaimed, not wanting to believe what she had just heard. "What the heck!-? You've never heard of Moe, Larry, and Curly (and sometimes Shemp)?-!-?-! Unbelievable! Inconceivable! Utterly incomprehensible! Absolutely inexcusable! I mean...! GAH!"

For a few moments, her rambling degenerated into full-on babbling as her brain repeatedly attempted to perform the expertly acrobatic mental contortions necessary to wrap itself around such a concept. Needless to say, it failed epically in this endeavor. Unable to execute the requested operation, Yukiji Katsura OS version 1.29.03b crashed _hard_ – blue screen of death and all. Thankfully, her brain managed to perform an automatic system reset after a few minutes, and yukijik_mind . exe was rebooted with minimal data loss. Then she continued, coherence restored. "What the Hell kind of ass-backwards, bizzaro-sheltered childhood did have to have never heard of _**THE**_ Three Stooges?-! Their work is CLASSIC! They were the goddamn kings of slapstick! What the _fuck_ are they teaching you kids these days?-!"

Hinagiku snorted. "You'd be the best one to answer that question, all things considered..." she snidely muttered _sotto voce_.

"Oh shut up, Hina," Yukiji retorted snippily, "Nobody asked you."

The pinkette rolled her eyes, but she said no more on the matter.

Yukiji turned her attention back to Ayumu. She pulled a blackboard, a pointer, a piece of chalk, and an eraser from hammerspace. Entering her rarely seen "Lecture Mode", she began.

"Okay, Nishi-tan, listen up. You see, it all started back in nineteen twenty-five with the vaudeville act 'Ted Healy and His Stooges'..."

* * *

Back at Sanzen'in mansion number thirty-six, the aforementioned Three Stooges of Hakuō Academy were doing what they did best.

"Oyyy~! Wake up, Hayata-kun!"

SMACK.

"Hey, _Riiiisaaa!_ Don't slap 'Ta-kun like that!" Izumi Segawa whined, glaring ineffectually at her friend, Risa Asakaze.

"I agree with Izumi," Miki piped up, nodding her head casually.

Izumi smiled brightly at Miss Hanabishi. She then turned back to Risa and gave her a smug smirk.

"I mean, you're doing it _all wrong!_"

"Yeah!" Izumi chirped. There was a pause. She blinked. Her smile faded and she stared ahead blankly. Slowly, gradually, realization dawned on her. "... wait, whut?"

"—all in the wrist, you see," said Miki, "If you keep it all limp like that, you won't be able to impart any significant amount of force." Having said that, she then pushed Risa aside. "'Here, let me demonstrate."

"Hey—!" the extroverted shrine maiden snapped, no doubt about to voice her objections to being handled so roughly, but she was silenced by a sharp rap on the noggin.

WHACK

Miki, after bopping her friend on the head to shut her up, grabbed the shoulder of the insensate blue-eyed butler with one hand. With the other hand, she quickly went to work smacking the Airheaded Gigolo in the face several times in rapid succession in the hopes of jarring him back into the realm of conscious thought.

The blows alternated between open-palm slaps to one cheek and backhand blows to the other with each strike. She did this for several seconds, racking up a total of one hundred and eight consecutive blows. The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the recently-vacated (by Nagi, Isumi, and Sakuya, who had left for parts of the mansion unknown) guest room. Hayate was roughly about as responsive to this treatment as a dead fish.

"Nyeehhh~, Miki-chaaan! Quit hitting Hayata-kuuun!" Izumi whined in protest.

"Yeah, Miki," Risa nodded, "I've gotta agree with Izumi on this; it's obviously not working."

Miss Hanabishi scowled. "Can you _really_ be _absolutely sure_ of that? I mean, who can say? For all we know, the next slap could be the one to wake him up," she argued reasonably, her voice even and steady. To demonstrate her point, she smacked the butler once more.

There was no effect.

"... ... ... okay, so maybe it _isn't_ working after all," she conceded reluctantly. "But do either of you have any **better** ideas?"

There was a moment of silence.

Far off in the distance, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, could be heard the faint, _faint_ sound of someone shouting something about eggs and stinking shins. This was followed seconds later by a sound like crackling flames and rushing wind, then by numerous THUMPs and THUDs and THUNKs, such as were characteristic of a large number of meaty objects (such as the bodies of the crew-members of a commercial freighter) falling down limply onto various surfaces. Then there was the whispered invocation of the title of a masculine monarch of the species _R. norvegicus_ followed by an ethereal humming and whirring, only to be drowned out by the great booming crashing and splashing of a ship being explosively decommissioned on the water.

After a few more moments of awkward quiet, Izumi at last spoke up with an answer. The girl, it turned out, _did_ have a better idea. Now, as was par for the course, it was not the best of ideas. It was not well thought out or particularly inspired, and in most company such a suggestion would have been promptly and summarily dismissed as both absurd and inappropriate. But the Three Stooges were **not** most company. And so Izumi spoke uncontested.

"You could try giving him a... a... Err..." The purple-haired pigtails girl who was NOT Ayumu Nishizawa paused, frowning. "... ummmmm... what's it called, again...?" she murmured to herself, feeling somewhat sheepish. "... Gah, I _know _that I know what it is, but... Ahh, darn it. It's right there on the tip of my tongue...!" she hissed softly, chewing on her bottom lip as she frantically attempted to recall the word she was looking for, her frustrating slowly growing.

Sighing, Izumi shook her head. She grumbled. "You know..." she said to her friends, gesturing vaguely, "That thing where you take a guy's thingy in your hand and sorta go up and down with it and play with it 'til he... uh... yeah... ... ..." She blushed, her cheeks turning a shade of vibrant red usually only achieved by ripe tomatoes and polished rubies. "... I read about it all the time in those magazines you guys lend me," she added as an afterthought.

"Ah, you must mean a 'hand-job'," Risa said sagely, holding her index finger aloft with a cheerful grin.

"Yeah!" Izumi nodded eagerly. "That's what it is: a '_hand-job_'!" she declared with satisfaction, enunciating the elusive term with a slight tone of uncertainty, as though it was foreign to her and she was thus not wholly sure how best to say it. Of course, that was in fact _exactly_ what it was.

You see, Izumi Segawa, unlike her two best friends, had little experience with more worldly matters. She had been well-sheltered over the course of her childhood and thus had much less familiarity than her peers with even so much as mere theory on matters of the flesh. She had scarcely ever heard the term uttered out loud, most of her experience with it coming from encountering it in written form in some of the... _trashier_... teen girl magazines she had obtained through Miki and Risa.

Stringer Segawa might have been a brash, overbearing oaf of a man; but he was, if nothing else, dedicated to preserving his daughter's innocence. Like any father would a daughter, he had doted on her constantly and used the full weight of his considerable influence to keep her as sheltered as humanly possible in this Information Age. He was protective to a fault, and he had done as good a job of safeguarding his sweet little girl's purity against the wicked intentions of men everywhere as any man could in this day and age of loose teens and widespread fornication[**3**].

Miki and Risa, however, were not quite so innocent as she. As was common of the children of politicians and/or pastors (or shrine-keepers, in this case), they were far from little angels. That is not to say that they were nearly as bad as such individuals could get. Indeed, all things considered, they were actually rather well-adjusted: they were not exactly outright punks or miscreants, and they were far from promiscuous. But, with that said, they had _not_ been intellectually innocent for a good few years now. And for as long as they had known Izumi, it had been their unofficial mission in life to corrupt her. And though Izumi was still largely naïve, her moderately frequent freudian slips were evidence enough that she was gradually evolving into something of a covert pervert – a point of pride for her pals if ever there was one.

That said, Miki was quickly beginning to think that she might soon end up regretting her role in corrupting Izumi. She grimaced, grimly noting the dangerously mischievous way Risa and Izumi were looking at her. They said no words, but their intentions were communicated to her quite clearly. They wanted _her_ to do it.

"Why me?" she groaned, addressing this inquiry both to her friends and to God (or any other entity who was at all willing to give her an answer, really).

"You're the one trying to wake him up," Izumi replied brightly.

Miki narrowed her eyes. "I wasn't the only one, you know," she said indignantly. "What about _you_, Risa?" She pointed accusingly at the tall brunette.

The girl in question smirked wickedly, causing Miki to gulp. "Now, now, Miki-chan," she said condescendingly, wagging her index finger in the blunette's face, "I've already had my turn with Hayata-kun. Now _you_ get a shot at him."

"Oh? And what if I don't _want_ a 'shot at him', as you say?"

Risa grinned evilly. "Oh, but you _**do**_," she stated in a tone that brooked no argument, "You just haven't _realized it_ yet."

"Yeah!" Izumi chirruped, "I mean, Li'l 'Ta-kun is_ so __**darn CUTE**_ that I could just gobble him right up!" She giggled. "Nyeh, nyeh, don't you agree?"

"Oh, _definitely_," Risa said, snickering slightly.

Miki wanted to cry. It was obvious that the other two were not about to let her off easy. She was, most likely, going to have to... do _that_... to... _that __**thing**_.

_'Just imagine he's a girl,'_ she told herself as she lifted up the butler's maid skirt and gingerly, reluctantly pulled down the pink strawberry-patterned panties. _'Just imagine he's a girl...'_ She looked at the unconscious boy's face – at his light blue hair, his fair skin, his delicate features. For a moment, in her mind's eye, she saw not Ayasaki but a girl, a young woman whose visage was well-known to most of the people in her age category.

_'... in fact... now that I think about it, he looks an awful lot like Luca Suirenji... Heck, if he grew his hair out a little longer, styled it right, and got himself some red contacts, he could probably pass himself off as that girl's doppelgänger...'_

Emboldened by that thought, she mentally replaced the "Hayata-kun" before her with an image of the aforementioned idol. The hair was a shade too dark and his chest -bared as it was through the undone front of the _meido_ blouse- was too flat, making it difficult to pretend that this was the modestly-endowed Suirenji whose measurements (her _real_ measurements, mind you, not the embellished ones "leaked" by her publicist[**4**]) Miki could recite by rote.

But she could manage.

_'Yeah...'_ Miki told herself, _'He's Luca-chan, not Hayata-kun. He's not a boy – he's a girl. He's a girl. She's a girl. She's a girl – not a boy. She's not Hayata-kun, she's Luca-chan... she's a girl...'_

Keeping her eyes locked on the butler's face, Miki began blindly groping about in the general vicinity of his groin. She tentatively patted him here and warily pawed him there, forcing herself to focus on his face all the while. She did this for a few minutes, manually making a mental map of the area below his belt through trial and error. After a number of near-misses, she at last managed to triangulate the most probable location of his lesser head relative to her hand.

She barely managed to repress a shudder when her hand brushed against the coarse, bristling thicket of questionable utility that enfolded his scrotum. Awkwardly moving her hand up a short ways, her loosely dangling fingers lightly and gingerly tracing the skin on the way to the shaft of his limp member, she reluctantly closed her hand around the appendage.

_'... she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl...'_

She nervously squeezed – a bit too tightly, it seemed, for Hayate's breath hitched in a pained gasp.

"Careful, Miki," Risa advised playfully, "You can't be too rough at the start: guys are real fragile down there."

"Really?" Izumi looked at Risa, a surprised look on her face. "That's odd. Those magazines you loaned me said the exact opposite."

_'... she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl...'_

Risa snorted. "_Please_. Half the advice in those things would put any normal guy in the ER."

Izumi's eyes widened. "Ehhh?-! No way!"

_'... she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl...'_

"Totally. I'd bet my hat that half those editors have probably never even had a real boyfriend before."

"... but you don't have a hat..." Izumi murmured, before she shook her head, clearing it. "How do you know so much about that, anyways?"

_'... she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl...'_

"Meh," Risa shrugged, "Let's just say my family's shrine has gotten a lot of visits over the years from girls who've accidentally hospitalized their boyfriends during their special happy fun time."

Izumi let out an impressed whistle. "Wow... It's really that bad?"

_'... she's a girl, she's a girl, she's a girl, he's a girl, he's a girl, he's a girl...'_

"Oh yeah, absolutely!" Risa said with a jovial guffaw, "It's an epidemic!"

Izumi giggled despite herself.

_'...he's a girl, he's a girl, he's a girl, he's a girl, he's a girl, he's a girl...'_

"Maa~~~an... I feel sorry for those poor guys."

"Poor girls, too," Risa added. "They go through all that trouble to make the moment special, only to end up crippling their lovers with an ill-advised trick between the sheets."

_'...he's a girl, he's a girl, he's a girl, he's a girl, he's a girl, he's a girl...'_

Miki whimpered quietly to herself as she held "Hayata-kun"'s limp prick in her hand motionlessly. Her eyes were tightly shut. She dared not to breathe.

_'... he's a girl, he's a girl, he's a girl...'_

A bead of sweat formed on her creased brow. It hung there for a minute or so, slowly growing larger and **larger **and **LARGER** until it reached the point where the force of gravity attracting its mass to that of the planet beneath her feet first equaled, then exceeded, the opposing forces of friction and surface tension.

_'... he's a girl, he's a girl, he's a girl...'_

The sweat-drop rolled down her brow, between her eyes, all the way to the tip of her nose. It hung there for a moment as it slowly swelled, gradually stretching downwards until at last it split, losing the bulk of its mass to cruel Newton.

_'... he's a girl, he's a girl, he's a boy...'_

The droplet fell. It swiftly plummeted, its bottom spreading outwards, deforming from the resistance of the air pressure as it steadily plunged downwards, boring through the atmospheric gases.

_'... he's a boy, he's a boy, he's a boy...'_

At last, it met the floor with a soft, scarcely audible _plink_. It splashed upwards, salty fluid blossoming at the point of impact for a split second. Then it broke apart, dispersing outwards from the center, spreading itself thinly against the coated hardwood floor, leaving behind naught save the dark trace of a moist blot.

_'... he's a boy, he's a boy, he's A BOY HE'S A BOY HE'S A BOY, HE'SABOYABOYA__BOY**ABOYBOYBOY**__**BOY**__**!-!-!**__'_ Miki made a choked gagging sound, quickly releasing the butler's flaccid member with a yelp as if burned. Her face was a most unusual color – a curious blend of violet, scarlet, blue, and green.

"I can't do it..." she moaned in a combination of disgust and embarrassment. She just _**knew**_ that Risa would never let her live this down, but she simply _could not_ go through with it. Her stomach was doing somersaults and her esophagus was burning. Her heart was beating a mile a minute and her hands were clammy with sweat. At the back of her mouth she could taste bile with a strong, underpinning flavor of rice, vegetables, and soy sauce – her lunch from the previous day. "It's just... too gross," she lamented -mostly to herself- with a half-faked grimace.

It was one thing to _film_ something like that, but actually _doing it _with one's own two hands was a whole other beast entirely. Miki was usually the calmest, most level-headed one out of the Three Stooges, but '_usually_' was the operative word here. There were many things and scenarios that could fall under that umbrella, and the few things that did _not_ were generally very rare, few and far between. Being forced by Risa -and, to a lesser extent, Izumi- into manhandling some guy's junk (even if that guy _was_ as feminine and overall likeable as "Hayata-kun") was NOT 'usually'. In fact, it was _so far_ from 'usually' that it might as well have been in a _completely different dimension __**entirely**_. It was not something she was comfortable with, is what I'm saying.

Now, Miki was not heterophobic – she was not outright repulsed or disgusted by the mere _sight_ of the male form, but neither was she allured or aroused by it. She could appreciate it from an aesthetic, artistic point of view. She could appreciate particularly handsome, well-formed specimens of the masculine sex, but it was more from an intellectual, scholarly perspective – like a horse-breeder examining a stallion set out to stud. Unlike Risa or even Izumi, Miki was not one to get hot and bothered by an exceptionally cute guy walking around shirtless or sending her a smile. She did not squeal or giggle about this cutey or that dreamboat. She did not daydream about becoming the "Missus" to some boy's "Mister". She had never really been attracted to boys _period_.

At first, she had believed this to simply be because she was _Miki Hanabishi_. She was the sane one, the rational one, the one who always kept a level head even when messing around. She was above such petty, base things as lust and desire. This was what she had believed for a long time.

But then she met Hinagiku.

Before that day, she had never even _considered _the idea that she could even _possibly_ be a lesbian. Not until that day had she ever thought of such a thing, but when she saw Hinagiku... when she saw her and for the first time noticed how sublimely beautiful the girl was to her... when she met her eyes and felt, for the first time in her young life, the spark of infatuation that would go on to evolve into full-out _eros_... That was when she realized the truth.

After that, after beholding that which she held to be the supreme loveliness of Hinagiku Katsura and feeling the butterflies set to fluttering about in her stomach, she had begun to reevaluate her previous assumptions regarding her sexuality, or supposed lack thereof, reconsidering her presumed exemption from that ugly yet enchanting beast of lust.

After that day, she began to see the world through eyes which had once been so blind, observing and noticing so many things for the first time. She looked at other girls and realized that she could feel her gut knot itself up whenever she happened to behold particularly cute or likeable ones. So she began to experiment, sitting herself on a park bench with a newspaper and surreptitiously observing the various lasses who walked past her spot, taking note of their individual characteristics and gauging her reactions to them. That was her talent, her greatest skill, her claim to fame – investigating, gathering information, analyzing data gleaned through observation; and in that endeavor it served her most well.

In a matter of hours, she had managed to compile an extensive, in-depth portfolio detailing the various girls who had walked by and her individual reactions to each of them. From there, she had gone on to examine the common traits between the specimens who had managed to get the most rise out of her. Using this, she put together a profile of her ideal crush: her personality, her age, her appearance. And whether it was through the power of SCIENCE or her subconscious making itself heard or even fate she did not know, but, as it turned out, the profile of her ideal crush had matched Hinagiku Katsura to a T. Nobody else even came close.

Nobody else could do to her what that paradoxically tomboyish pinkette could. Nobody else affected her like that. There were others who could make her heat up, but none other than Hina could make her feel that electric tingling in her skin just from mere proximity. There were no others like her. Nobody else. Only Hinagiku. Only _she_ could. For one reason or another, Miki Hanabishi was totally hardcore sapphist for student council president.

Unlike Risa and Izumi, Miki was not physically attracted to Hayate "Hayata-kun" Ayasaki, even though his gender-bender alter ego "Hermione" _did_ give her that certain pleasing tightness in her chest. Unlike Risa and Izumi, Miki had no desire to do any naughty things with Hayate beyond casual teasing. The other two might have been able to stomach, and even cherish, the idea of being ecchi with "Hayata-kun", but Miki was not attracted to him as anything but a casual friend – someone she could tease and talk to and hang out with. The only intercourse she ever desired to have with him was the verbal kind [**5**].

And Li'l Hayate appeared to feel similarly towards her, since it had not reacted so much as one iota to her touch. A (very, _very_) small part of Miki was insulted by this, thinking: _'What? Am I not __**good enough**__ for you? Clearly, you have no taste!'_. Miki ignored this voice, however, as the rest of her was relieved that she had not managed any sort of rise out of "Hayata-kun"'s smallsword – it would have been a dozen times more awkward, otherwise.

"Nyeehh~, you're not very good at this, are you, Miki-chan?" Izumi observed with a giggle, having gotten more-or-less immunized (for the time-being, at least) to the sight of the butler's third leg after the day's events.

"Yeah," Risa nodded, smirking mischievously, "Ta-chin didn't even _twitch_ when you touched 'im."

Miki quirked an eyebrow at this, the shock having mostly worn off by this point. "_'Ta-chin'_?"

"Uh-huh," Risa nodded again, "You know, as in _'Hayata-chin'_[**6**]."

Miki's face met her palm. Hello, palm. "That's a _lousy_ nickname," she deadpanned.

"I agree with Miki," said Izumi.

Miki smirked victoriously at this. "See—?" she began, only to be cut off by Izumi continuing to speak.

"_'Tacchin-tan' _is way better."

Miki face-faulted.

* * *

On the forty-first floor of the Grand Hyatt Cairo, in a spacious air-conditioned suite, a portly, balding man of Kenyan descent was carefully examining the contents of an unmarked manilla envelope. His mouth was set in a painful scowl, and his eyes were staring a hole through the outside of the envelope. He was dressed in a fluffy, pink bathrobe, having just gotten out of the shower.

The man was in his early fifties. His face was showing the onset of wrinkles around his brow, eyes, and cheeks. His eyes were brown and deep-set, peering forth with deceptive intensity. His physique had the traces of a body that may have once been quite fit but had long since gone to seed.

He was Sefu Jelani, a moderately successful businessman who ran a small security firm out of his home country. His company did a number of jobs for various corporations and interests in both Africa and the Middle East, and they were fairly good at what they did. While his firm may have not been particularly impressive or remarkable in any meaningful way, they _were_ cheap to hire. _Sure_ his business practices might not have been the most ethical, and _yeah_ he might have had a tendency of cutting corners wherever possibly he could, but he and his employees did what they were paid to do – no more, no less.

However, the contents of this envelope had nothing to do with this. It had nothing to do his company, _Jengo-Jelani Securities Ltd._, and it had nothing to do with its president. For one thing, it was addressed not to Sefu Jelani, president and co-founder of _Jengo-Jelani Securities Ltd._, but to his alias "Simba Kibwe", career spy and peerless private investigator.[**7**]

Simba both was and was not surprised by this. On the one hand, this was the very reason he had come up here to Cairo, Egypt on this so-called "business trip". He had known he was going to be contacted by that man at some point during his stay... but on the other hand... to receive the communique from that man so soon, only an hour after checking into the hotel?

Simba could not help but shudder. Despite only having been contacted by this "Wodan" character once before, it was obvious to him that that man really _was_ as good as they said he was, and even better still. Scarily efficient, incredibly resourceful, ruthlessly determined... Everything Simba had heard about the enigmatic character named for the Proto-Germanic deity and psychopomp _W__ō__đanaz_, precursor to the Continental Germanic Wōden and the Ancient Norse Odin, had told him that this was someone you did NOT want to go up against in a war of espionage and intrigue. Apparently, nobody ever told this to the one called "Ares", however.

Simba shook his head. Ares, the violent, Ancient Greek god of war who once had been the patron deity of the totalitarian military city-state of Sparta (itself said by some to have been named for the _Spartoí_, the mythical children of Ares grown from dragon teeth sown in the fashion of a farmer's crop)... There was hardly a more perfect nickname for the man he had been hired to investigate. A wholly unscrupulous military contractor and weapons dealer, a merchant of bloody death and wholesale destruction. Even someone with Mr. Kibwe's loose morals could not be anything but **sickened** by the way that heartless _fucker_ conducted business.

Simba's thoughts turned dark as he contemplated with growing disgust all he had uncovered so far of the man's dealings.

_'That man is a monster... a monster and a lunatic. It boggles the mind. How could he, or anyone, be so mad as to undertake such... such a a fool's errand? Surely he must remember the aftermath of the InGen scandal... so many lives lost in such a senseless manner... Why would ANYONE be trying to __**weaponize **__such things, such technology...?'_

Simba, only half-aware of his actions, reached under his bed and retrieved an unassuming black attaché case. Turning the seven separate dials on its lock to enter the correct combination, _7-5-7-6-3-1-5_, he opened it up. Inside, buried amidst numerous papers (everything from seemingly innocuous pay-slips to suspicious corporate memos to highly incriminating photographs and maps of Isla Lluvia – one of the "Five Islands of Death" off the coast of Costa Rica along with Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna), was a small folder.

He flipped the folder open. Contained within was the true prize, the perfect cornerstone for damn near any case one could possibly wish to bring against "Ares": a signed order by the man himself -using his real name- requesting the transfer of "SAMPLE ZERO" to the illegal research facilities located on Isla Lluvia that connected the man, beyond any shadow of a doubt, with the anarchist guerrilla cell _La Rabia_ _de la Sangre Roja y Caliente_; the RSRC, or Lara de las Rocas, as it was called amongst its members – Lara of the Rocks.

With this, the man could finally be brought to justice, even if only for a mere_ fraction _of the crimes he has committed against humanity.

That said, Simba was no fool. He knew that Ares -or _Robert T._, as the signature identified him- would use all of his considerable resources to fight against any possible conviction. And he understood that the easiest way to do that would be to discredit the evidence. So he had done his research, triple-checking **everything** and leaving _no_ stone unturned. And, after weeks, he had finally been able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt (if only to himself) that the paper was indeed one hundred percent authentic, the genuine article.

_'Not even the Tenn__ō__s name will be able to protect that man from his crimes... This paper will make sure of that...!'_

So engrossed in thought was he, he never even noticed the shadow growing over him. Not until it was far too late.

A cruel, jagged, ritual dagger of blackest steel glinted with a dark un-light. There was a sudden flash of blurring movement, and it slashed through the air, trailing a flying arc of soaring, splashed blood in the wake of its sullied blade.

SCHWIIIIICK.

Sefu Jelani, a.k.a Simba "The Lion" Kibwe, fell forward, his throat sliced open. Blood gushed from the wound for a few seconds -being pushed out by the very pumping of the man's own heart- until it slowed down to a light _drip, drip, drip_. The crimson liquid was pooled about him, soaking into the luxurious carpeting.

A shadowy figure, tall and lean with a black, frigorific aura like vast, enfolding wings of impenetrable, starless night stood over the man, victorious. With a deep voice like yet at the same time somehow _unlike_ that of a man, the figure spoke. It was a sound smooth yet harsh, and it was utterly bone-chilling.

"Mission... accomplished."

The Angel of Death had claimed yet another life.

* * *

Back with Hinagiku, Yukiji, and Ayumu before the front gate of the Sanzen'in estate, the green-haired school teacher was reading an excerpt from a book, _The Columbia Comedy Shorts_. The blackboard behind her was covered in notes, and its surface was blanketed in smeared chalk dust. At her feet were several charts and graphs and books.

"_'—Many scholarly studies of motion picture comedy have overlooked the Three Stooges entirely—and not without valid reasoning. Aesthetically, the Stooges violated every rule that constitutes "good" comedic style. Their characters lacked the emotional depth of Charlie Chaplin and Harry Langdon; they were never as witty or subtle as Buster Keaton. They were not disciplined enough to sustain lengthy comic sequences; far too often, they were willing to suspend what little narrative structure their pictures possessed in order to insert a number of gratuitous jokes. Nearly every premise they have employed (spoofs of westerns, horror films, costume melodramas) has been done to better effect by other comedians. And yet, in spite of the overwhelming artistic odds against them, they were responsible for some of the finest comedies ever made. Their humor was the most undistilled form of low comedy; they were not great innovators, but as quick laugh practitioners, they place second to none. If public taste is any criterion, the Stooges have been the reigning kings of comedy for over fifty years.'_[**8**]" She snapped the book shut. "Well?"

Ayumu blinked. "Uhh... Okay, yeah, I think I'm pretty well clear on what 'Three Stooges' means by now."

Yukiji grinned broadly, dropping her pedantic demeanor. "Good! Now we can sneak into the mansion!"

Hinagiku sighed. "And how, pray tell, do you plan on doing that?"

"Taking the side entrance," Yukiji said plainly, pointing off-screen to stage left. Following her index finger, the camera/perspective panned over to reveal a door that was very obviously a cheap prop put in place solely for the purpose of this scene. There were even several stagehands milling about, drinking cheap coffee from even cheaper white styrofoam cups.

Hinagiku and Ayumu stared, utterly nonplussed. Yukiji grabbed their hands and dragged them through the door. The hallway was narrow and poorly lit with barely enough space for even the smallest two of them to walk abreast. The walls were of gray plaster cracked and chipped. The floor was grimy, covered in a thick layer of filth. White cobwebs hung from the ceiling and the walls, clinging to the hair and clothes of the girls as they passed. But the youngest two were too busy puzzling over this and that to pay any mind to their surroundings.

"... uhhhh..."

"... so... wait... whaaa—"

"...haaaah...?"

"—aaaaaaa—"

"... eehhh...?"

"—aaaaaaaaat the heck?"

Hinagiku shook her head, while Ayumu clutched hers as though she had a severe headache. The former then squinted and scratched her chin, thinking.

"... okay... What does this make us, then? Actors? Characters? This doesn't even make any sense...! Is this supposed to be an anime? A manga? A movie? What is all this?-!" Hinagiku ranted, but she received no coherent response.

"Wuzza... buzza... fuzzamuzza? A-blibble blarble glarbley glooger," Ayumu babbled.

Hinagiku sighed. "Great. The author broke Nishizawa's brain."

Yukiji simply shrugged. "Eh, had to happen sooner or later."

The pinkette shook her head. "But this isn't in the script! This chapter was supposed to be about the three of us sneaking into the mansion in a parody of heist movies!"

The verdette waved a hand dismissively. "Ah, we'll have another opportunity for that in... oh, thirteen or so chapters from now, give or take a few depending on the speed of the plot."

Hinagiku eyed her sister suspiciously. "... seriously? We're only half-way through the story?"

"Naaahhh."

The student council president breathed a sigh of relief.

"We're not _nearly_ at the half-way point, yet."

Hinagiku felt a blood vessel burst. _'**FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUU—**'_

* * *

_'**—CK!**' _Hayate shot upright, startling the Three Stooges. "Oh dear, how long have I been unconscious?-!" he exclaimed, his body covered with a cold sweat. He looked around for wildly for a few seconds before spotting a small digital clock on the far wall.

_ '7:50 P.M.?-! Crap!'_

"I need to get back to work!" he exclaimed frantically, jumping onto his feet and dashing off, disappearing in a blur of light blue.

Risa whistled, impressed. "Daaayuuuum, man, Hayata-kun sure is fast." She paused a moment, considering something. "... I sure hope that doesn't carry over to _other_ things..."

Izumi blinked, staring at Risa blankly. "... I dun geddit."

Miss Asakaze shook her head. "Haaah..." she sighed, "Looks like me and you've have still got our work cut out for us, eh, Miki?"

"Ehhhreeshaah," Miki responded in a muffled affirmative, her face still planted against the floor. She made an awkward sort of nodding motion, her face squeaking against the well-polished hardwood flooring as she did so.

[Narrio Wakamator: "Translation: Eh, Risa."]

* * *

We now find our protagonist and her crew in a cozy, dimly lit room. The floor was covered with shag carpeting, there was a jacuzzi with scented rose petals floating in it upon the hot water in one corner, and a large heart-shaped waterbed -with its head against the wall opposite the "side door"- dominated the center of the room. The ceiling was covered with a brightly-polished, full-length silver mirror. Concealed stereos were softly playing Barry White in surround sound. And, lying strewn across the bed, wearing see-through color-coded teddies (red, blue, and green) and clumsily striking what they clearly imagined to be seductive poses, were Isumi and Nagi and Sakuya.

Ayumu, taking in the sight of the room and the girls, felt her sanity snap abruptly back in place. "You guys look **ridiculous**!" she snorted, bursting out in laughter.

"What the heck!" Nagi snarled, jumping up onto to her knees, intending to give that no-good obnoxious Hamster a piece of her mind. This sudden motion caused the waterbed to jiggle violently. Its surface warped and bucked, its chaotic undulations unceremoniously throwing the three girls off, dumping them face-first onto the shaggy carpet.

A pause.

Nagi, her voice muffled by the carpeting, growled."Doh'. Shay. Emmehfim."

[Narrio Wakamator: "Translation: Don't. Say. Anything."]

It was quiet for a moment, save for Ayumu's continued chuckling.

SNAP.

"BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~!" Yukiji howled uproariously, pointing at the three girls face-down on the floor and falling onto her back. She started rolling back and forth on her sides in mirthful convulsions, kicking her legs several times with every heave of her chest.

Hinagiku, covering her mouth with one hand, snickered, repressing her laughter the best she could.

Ayumu continued laughing, doubled over and clutching her gut. There were tears streaming down her cheeks and a somewhat pained expression on her face, but she kept on cackling like a hyena on THC.

"... Ah hae' all'uh joo."

[Narrio Wakamator: "Translation: I hate all of you."]

* * *

In another part of town, at the local airport, two schoolgirls were lugging their luggage off of a private Concorde.

Stepping off the tarmac, one of the two -a young lady with short orange hair and yellowish orange eyes- smiled. "Yaa~ay! We made it!" She turned to her friend, a dark-skinned, blue-haired, green-eyed lass of apparent Indian descent. "Isn't this great, Sharna-chan? We're back!"

"Of course we're back, Fumi. We _did_ charter a supersonic jet for the trip, after all."

"Nooo, Sharna! Don't you see?" Fumi exclaimed, eyes wide as she flailed her arms wildly. "There were, like, a bajillion things that could've gone wrong! The engines could've failed! We could've been hijacked or shot down! There could've been a gremlin on the wing! And the pilots could've eaten some bad fish, forcing us to coordinate with the nearest air-traffic control tower and perform an emergency landing! Any little thing could've gone wrong, and we could've all died! It's exactly like uncle Ian and Murphy-sensei always say. It's MATH – Chaos Theory! You know, with the propellers and the water droplets and the unpredictable potential outcomes for any given situation!"

Sharna rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah," she said dismissively. "Murphy-sensei's a paranoid pessimist, and your uncle Ian is just plain crazy. I mean, '_chaotician_'? **Seriously**?"

"WAH, SHARNA-CHAN! THAT'S MEAN!" Fumi whined childishly. "Chaos Theory is a perfectly legitimate branch of mathematics!"

Sharna snorted. "Yeah, sure. And a chiropractor is a legitimate doctor," she remarked sarcastically.

Fumi glared at her friend with burning intensity, causing the girl to wince.

Sharna felt a pang of guilt at the look of anger and betrayal on her friend's face. Fidgeting uncomfortably, she let out a sigh. "Geh... Yeah... sorry, that was just... too low a blow, even for me. I'm sorry."

Fumi's stony expression instantly melted, and she wrapped her arms around her friend, pulling Miss Alamgir into a bone-crushing bear hug. "I FORGIVE YOU!" she shouted.

Sharna simply focused on not suffocating.

* * *

Hayate, in one of the mansion's many boudoirs, stared at the writing on the panties that he had sorted by size from smallest to largest. It might have seemed like complete gibberish to the average observer, but there was _definitely_ a pattern to it... And Hayate had enough experience in cryptography from his time spent running coded messages between the various unscrupulous gangs and organizations that he had been forced to work for as a boy that he could recognize a coded message on sight. This code was not one with which he was immediately familiar, however.

A thought struck him, and he remembered the apparent gibberish he had seen scribbled on the back of that business card. _'I wonder...'_

He took the rent-a-minister's business card out, turned it over, took out a sheet of paper and a pencil, and got to work decoding this curious communique.

* * *

Nagi was on top of Ayumu, throttling her. The older girl's face was blue, but she still continued laughing.

"You... seduce... Hayate...!-?" the purple/blue pigtailed girl gasped out in between breaths. "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~!"

"SUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP! SHUT UP OR I'LL** KILL** YOU!" Nagi snarled, tightening her grip on "Hamster"'s throat. But her tiny fingers could only barely wrap themselves all the way around the older girl's neck, and her grip was not nearly strong enough to constrict Ayumu's windpipe by more than a few millimeters. In all honesty, Ayumu was more likely to suffocate from her laughter than she was from the young blonde choking her.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA~! NO... WAY... IN HELL...!" Ayumu howled, her cheeks beginning to turn purple.

"SHUT UP, DARN YOU!"

"EAT... MY... SHORTS...!"

Nagi saw red. Growling, she shouted: "_**WHY YOU LITTLE—!**_"

Yukiji and Sakuya sat off to the side, sharing a bucket of popcorn between them while Isumi studied a copy of _The Fisherman's Wife_. Hinagiku, meanwhile, was trying to pry Nagi off of Nishizawa, but the Sanzen'in heiress was incredibly clingy.

None of them noticed the sound of the room's main door creaking on its hinges as it was pushed open.

Light streamed in from the hallway, only to be blocked off by a silhouette. The figure blinked.

"Ummm... am I interrupting something?"

All six of the girls looked towards the door, at the speaker. He was dressed in a tidy black butler's uniform. His beautiful blue eyes were filled with worry and his lips -so sweet and enticing to the girls- were curled downwards into a frown.

"Uh... Heeeeey, Hayate... I gotta say I didn't expect to see you in here so soon..." Nagi smiled sheepishly, glancing from her butler to her hands clutching Nishizawa's throat. "... ... ... Erm, this isn't what it looks like..."

Hayate cocked his head to the side curiously. "Eh? Then what is it? Because it looks like you were strangling Nishizawa-san for laughing at your state... of... dress..." he trailed off, nervously averting his gaze from the three seductively clad girls to hide the slight blush on his cheeks. _'H-huh...? Why am I reacting like this...?'_

Sakuya smirked.

Yukiji blinked.

Isumi did a little happy dance.

Hinagiku growled.

Nagi got off of Ayumu, not noticing that the snap-crotch of her teddy had come undone in the chaos.

Ayumu, no longer being held down by Nagi, decided to take a little revenge on the girl. Sure it was petty, but so was strangling someone for laughing at you. "Hey, Hayate-kun!" she said, waving a hand to get his attention.

"Yes, Nishizawa-san...?" Hayate, without thinking, turned to face the person who had just adressed him.

When Hayate met her eyes, Ayumu smiled mischievously. "Look!" she exclaimed pointing in Nagi's direction. Hayate, following her finger, looked in the direction she was pointing... right at his mistress's unknowingly bared groin.

"B-b-b-b-buh...!" Hayate stammered, eyes wide. His blush instantly grew deeper and darker. He felt something warm and wet and sticky start to drip from his nose. Wiping at it with the back of his sleeve, he looked down at the dark, reddish smear on the black fabric. _'B-blood...'_ Hayate squeaked. "P-p-p-please c-co-cover yourself, m-milady...!" he yelped.

"Eh?" Nagi followed Hayate's gaze downwards. Her eyes widened and her face turned beet red. "... ... ... ... ... ... HAYATE, YOU _PERVERT!_"

"WAH! I'M SO SORRY, MILADY!"

* * *

_Omake: Wrapping It All Up...?  
_

Hayate blinked, nursing the swollen lump on his head. "... a... sleepover...?"

"Yeah," Sakuya said with a casual nod, "We've been doing this for years." She turned to Nagi and Isumi. "Right, guys?"

"Indeed," Isumi replied.

"Uh-huh..." Nagi nodded, "But perverts aren't invited," she added with a huff, still upset that Hayate had seen her... down there... before the time was right. "And by 'perverts' I mean Hayate."

"Th-that's okay, milady...!" Hayate said, sweat-dropping. "I'm perfectly fine with that..."

Nagi narrowed her eyes at Hayate. "You don't sound very disappointed..." she observed darkly. _'Is he saying he doesn't find me attractive?-! Grr... That perverted, heart-breaking butler...!'_

Hayate chuckled nervously. "Well, I never really expected that you would want me participate in anything like that with that in the first place," he murmured, his words coming out sounding a great deal gloomier than he had intended.

"Awww..." Ayumu cooed pulling Hayate into a comforting hug, "Is that because your good-for-nothing parents messed you up so bad, emotionally, that you're incapable of believing you can actually have any friends?"

"Uh, nooo..."

"Oh,_ Hayate_," Hinagiku said, joining in on the hug, "Just because _certain people_ act all temperamental around you doesn't mean they hate you..."

"... thank you, Hinagiku-san..." Hayate smiled awkwardly, "... I'm... so glad you don't hate me."

Hina blinked. "Eh? I was talking about Nagi..." seeing Hayate's face fall, she added, "... but that doesn't mean it can't still apply to me..." she added softly, her cheeks growing faintly erubescent.

"BOO!" Sakuya jeered, jarring the two out of their Moment. "Show us some real action! Save the fluff for the bedroom, we wanna see some hardcore _smexing_!"

Ayumu blushed beet red. She did not let go, though.

"YEAH! TITS OR GTFO!" Yukiji cheered drunkenly.

"SIS!" Hinagiku exclaimed, looking scandalized.

"What? I'm just saying what everyone's thinking!"

"..." said Ayumu.

"..." said Hinagiku.

"..." said Hayate.

Nagi faked a cough. "... _awwwkwaaard_..." she muttered.

* * *

[**1**]: Imagine my embarrassment when, after having used the HnG wiki on hayatenogotoku**[dot]**wikia**[dot]**com to verify this or that fact about a given character or place or event for nearly as long as I've been writing this story, I finally decide to look up Ayumu Nishizawa on it for one reason or another only to notice that under hair color on her entry is 'Dark Blue' as opposed to 'Purple' as I have been REPEATEDLY wrongly assuming for the past fourteen chapters. That sure is some egg on my face.

Then again, I was not once corrected by any of my readers on this, so I am forced to assume that either 1) nobody notices minor details like that in my writing, 2) I was not alone in my assumptions regarding her follicular pigmentation, or 3) 'Dark Blue' is close enough to 'Purple' that nobody fucking cares whether or not I'm -apparently- slightly colorblind. Meh, either or, I s'pose.

[**2**]: The reasoning for this is a bit circuitous, but here goes.

In Japanese, the Three Stooges are called _San Baka Taishō_ (三馬鹿大将). This translates into English as "Three Idiot Generals". I have the Japanese characters in this fic say "Three Stooges" because that is what we English speakers best know the Three Stooges as. Ayumu parrots it back to Yukiji as "Three Idiot Generals" instead of "Three Stooges" because she does not get the reference and thus interprets the phrase literally. The words she is saying are not actually any different from what Yukiji had said, but she lacks the comprehension of the colloquial meaning behind them.

Basically: to illustrate that she is unfamiliar with the Three Stooges, I have her use a literal translation of a title that most English speakers would not be familiar with. Get it? Got it? Good.

[**3**]: Even the author (a political US-brand conservative and moderately devout Lutheran-Protestant) knows that Stringer is paranoid and largely incorrect on at least one matter: teens today are not necessarily any more likely to have stupidly reckless sex than they were fifty, sixty, or even seventy years ago. They've, more or less, _always_ been completely irresponsible in such matters – at least, they have for as long as people have bothered to gather accurate info on such things.

Now, certainly, social condition does have an effect on a person's mentality regarding sexuality and can even alter their behavior to an extent; but the majority of growing teens always have -and always _will_ have- the URGE to have sex, and with anything less than absolute conviction and an iron will (perhaps a bit of an exaggeration) would (generally) find themselves hard-pressed to turn it down should the opportunity arise. This is, perhaps, largely due to the fact it takes humans half as long to reach sexual maturity as it does for their brains (particularly the parts dedicated to risk-assessment and decision-making) to finish developing.

[**4**]: This little bit was inspired by a line in _Persona 4_ where Rise/Risette, the requisite teen idol, says she doesn't really care if the boys see the contents of the report from her recent medical exam, since her measurements were public knowledge (albeit doctored by a inch or two in certain places).

And as for how Miki came to know Luca's real measurements? I dunno. (Seriously, how many Noodle Incidents is that by now?)

Also, I'm not sure whether to make Miki a Schoolgirl Lesbian or just give her Single Target Sexuality for Hina. Heck, in the terms of the story, as a teenager on the cusp of adulthood struggling to find her identity, Miki herself probably isn't even too sure about her orientation, save that she has what could be construed as a youthful crush on the student council president.

[**5**]: _intercourse_- **noun**: 1.) dealings or communication between individuals, groups, countries, etc.; 2.) interchange of thoughts, feelings, etc.; 3.) sexual relations or a sexual coupling, especially coitus.

[**6**]: In this instance, the '_chin_' could be read as '_chin_', a cutesy corruption of '_chan_', OR as '_chin_', a Japanese slang term for 'penis'.

[**7**]: '_Jengo_' is a Swahili name meaning 'building'. '_Jelani_' is a Swahili name meaning 'mighty'. Additionally, '_Sefu_' is 'sword', '_Simba_' is 'lion', and '_Kibwe_' is 'blessed'.

[**8**]: Source: Okuda, Ted; Watz, Edward (1986). _The Columbia Comedy Shorts_. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. pp. 60–102, 237–239. ISBN 0899501818. [Cited from Wikipedia entry on _The Three Stooges_]

* * *

**A/N: This marks the end of this arc. Next chapter will be a nice little interlude starring everyone's favorite maid! **

**No, not Saki. **

**No. I don't mean Chiharu, either.**

**_Ayumu?-!_ OH COME ON! Nishizawa isn't even a maid! **

**... Haaah...? **

**Oh... okay, so maybe I will concede that Hata certainly _has _set it up for her to sorta be like a maid to Wataru, depending on whether or not what he did would fall under "confessing his love". But I swear to God, Pain, Dende, and Baby Jesus that if Kenny even _thinks_ about trying to pair the spares or tie up romantic loose ends by having Hamster-chan fall for Wataru, I will fly all the way to Japan and _KICK him in the FUCKING BALLS!_ ... or, you know, bitch and moan impotently about it online. But the first one sounds better.**

** ... ... ... what was I talking about, again...? Oh, right, the next chapter. As I was saying, it will be starring everyone's favorite maid: Maria! It might take a while to write up, though.  
**

**Also, Imma take this chance to plug my HnG oneshot _I Don't Have Any Friends_, just because I can.  
**

**Also, also, here, again, are the stats prior to updating:**

_Hayate the Combat Butler - Rated: M - English - Humor/Adventure - Chapters: 14 - Words: 81,834 - Reviews: 25 - Updated: 8-24-11 - Published: 2-27-10 - Ayumu & Hayate_

**And additionally:**

_Hits: 6,421_

_Favorites: 18_

_Alerts: 24_

_C2s: 1  
_

**Chapter Added: **_9-10-11 [September 10, 2011]_

**TTFN and R&R!**


	16. And Some People Say the Japanese are

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A Hayate the Combat Butler fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: Ahhh... This chapter took quite a while to complete due a number of reasons ranging from running out of my medication (again), writer's block, job searching (on which I should honestly probably be spending more time than I am), and good old fashioned procrastination. I have, however, actually been keeping up with the HnG manga for once. **

**And on that note, am I the only person thinking that Hata must be building up towards Hayate burning out at some point? I mean, the guy's workload keeps increasing, he gets -at best- two hours of sleep a day, and numerous characters have remarked that he should really slow down and take it easy before he burns out [OBVIOUS FORESHADOWING?]. Of course, if it _is_ leading up to something like that, I wonder if it will be given a humorous treatment, or if it will be given a more dramatic one...? Certainly, given the manga's track record of generally trivializing Hayate's non-Athena-related woes outside of exceptionally dramatic points... And aside from whether or not it will be given the drama-llama treatment, how might he go about executing it? Would it be executed as a looming possibility and thus an excuse for something like a "beach episode" or "hot springs vacation" or maybe even a "ship-tease date chapter" with some concerned lass? Or would it be done with Hayate actually collapsing from overwork and being forced to stay in bed or, in a worst case scenario, end up in the ICU or ER? Would it be used for introspection and serious character development, or as an excuse for Hayate's various admirers to all compete with each other while trying to take care of him...? **

**... Actually, I could very easily see Kenny doing something like that last one, and it probably _would_ be pretty funny and have plenty of ship-teasing. That would probably be interesting to see, even though I personally would be more interested in seeing it handled dramatically... But unless Athena is directly involved or Hata is feeling particularly dark, I doubt that would happen. But, then again, is not Hata just the kind of writer to throw his readers for a loop like that? I dunno. I'm seriously over-analyzing things, here.  
**

** (That said, if any of you readers are looking for an HnG plot bunny, you would be perfectly welcome -encouraged, even!- to go ahead and parse my above ramblings for any inspiration you might be able to use. HnG needs more fics, and every little bit helps!)**

**Also, be sure to check out my newest HnG oneshot _Hamster in Hamster_ and check out my entry into "Cuteness Competition" being held by The HnG Fan Club on DeviantArt dot com (my profile has a link to both the pic and the group).  
**

**This is my longest chapter thus far, beating out__**** The Revenge of the Terrifying "Cat-ears Mode"!** (a personal favorite of mine) by a few hundred words. I chapter has what is probably the longest omake in the entire fic (thus far). You'll see what I mean when you get there... Also, this is more-or-less a breather chap before we enter into the heavy stuff, as well as an excuse for gratuitous Maria cuteness. Also something of an otaku-themed musical chapter, as would be fitting for an HnG fic. The songs, by order of appearance, are:

**.**

***~"**_**Kurukururin**_**" - Ending theme for **_**2x2=shinobuden**_** (also known as **_**Ninja Nonsense: The Legend of Shinobu **_**and **_**Ninin Ga Shinobuden**_**)**

**.**

***~ "**_**Soramimi Cake**_**" - Opening theme for **_**Azumanga Daioh**_

**.**

**WARNING: This chapter has excessive amounts of Maria, so those of you who are cuteness intolerant should remove the sticks from your asses before reading.**

* * *

**Last time on 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

* * *

_Nagi got off of Ayumu, not noticing that the snap-crotch of her teddy had come undone in the chaos._

_Ayumu, no longer being held down by Nagi, decided to take a little revenge on the girl. Sure it was petty, but so was strangling someone for laughing at you. "Hey, Hayate-kun!" she said, waving a hand to get his attention._

_"Yes, Nishizawa-san...?" Hayate, without thinking, turned to face the person who had just adressed him._

_When Hayate met her eyes, Ayumu smiled mischievously. "Look!" she exclaimed pointing in Nagi's direction. Hayate, following her finger, looked in the direction she was pointing... right at his mistress's unknowingly bared groin._

_"B-b-b-b-buh...!" Hayate stammered, eyes wide. His blush instantly grew deeper and darker. He felt something warm and wet and sticky start to drip from his nose. Wiping at it with the back of his sleeve, he looked down at the dark, reddish smear on the black fabric. _'B-blood...'_ Hayate squeaked. "P-p-p-please c-co-cover yourself, m-milady...!" he yelped._

_"Eh?" Nagi followed Hayate's gaze downwards. Her eyes widened and her face turned beet red. "... ... ... ... ... ... HAYATE, YOU _PERVERT!_"_

_"WAH! I'M SO SORRY, MILADY!"_

* * *

**Now, for the next installment of 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

.

.

.

**Chapter Thirteen:**

**And Some People Say the Japanese are too Suggestible When it Comes to Manga**

Maria smiled, humming softly to herself as she cleaned up in Nagi's bedroom. Since the girl was staying in one of the guestrooms with her friends, this was an ideal time for Maria to tidy up her mistress's pigpen of a room.

Her vintage retro S-DAT player clicked slightly before the next song on the track started up.

Spinning once merrily on her heels, Maria began singing along with the recording, temporarily heedless of anyone hearing her.

"_(SHU-TATA SHU-TATA Hurry up!_

_SHU-TATA SHU-TATA shuugou!)_"

She grabbed up one sock, then another, then two—four—six more, tossing them up in the air. She grabbed the laundry basket and caught the socks in it.

"_GIRIGIRI SE-FU suberikon de_

_Kibishii asa wo tobikoeta_

_'Kinou no hanashi chotto dake USO kamo' nante_

_Yabbari shugyou fusoku GANBARO!_"

She skipped forward, gracefully bending down with a flourish to pick up a shirt, briefly twirling it in her hand like a leek before smoothly and easily wadding it up into a ball and tossing it behind her to land in the laundry basket. Then she picked up two skirts, spun back to the basket, and dropped them into it as well.

"_Kurukururi rippa ni naru hi ga_

_Kurukururi~ kurukururin_

_Da-i-jo-u-bu~!_"

In two steps she elegantly glided across the floor over to the side of Nagi's bed. Grabbing the sheets by the two nearest corners, she whipped them up into the air to clear the various comics and snack wrappers off of the bed. Then she sharply yanked them back down. Reeling them in and rolling them up in the same motion, she paused to belt out the next line before tossing them over her back into the laundry basket.

"_Nen zuneba hanahiraku' nante_

_Tayorinai hitorigoto_

_Demo, ganbara nakucha~~~!_"

She hopped from one foot to the other over to the dresser and retrieved clean sheets and blankets. With a twirl of her skirt, she slid back to Nagi's bed. She put on the bottom sheet, stretching its elastic over the mattress and making sure to tuck it in on all sides, deftly smoothing out any wrinkles and creases with her hands. Then she repeated this process for the second sheet, the blanket, and the comforter. Then she did a twirl, before striking a pose and shouting out:

"_(SHU-TATA SHU-TATA shuugou!)_"

She mimed spinning a pair of revolvers in her hands like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood in a Western and shooting them at imaginary targets. Then she raised the tips of her index fingers -pointed straight to the sky- up to her lips and blew on them like she was blowing gun smoke away from the mouth of a black powder pistol.

"_Tsukareta nante arienai yo_

_Madamada tooi risou yori_

_Kesa mita yume ga chotto demo genjitsu naraba_

_Yama yori takaku yotei tsunde sou~!_"

She leaned over and grabbed the pillows, pulling off the pillowcases and putting on clean ones. She carried the dirty pillowcases over to the laundry basket, picking up three pairs of panties, two training bras (Nagi had_ insisted _on them, never mind whether or not she actually _needed_ them yet), five more mismatched socks, one more shirt, and a carelessly discarded Hakuō uniform -blouse, blazer, and skirt- while spinning to and fro.

"_Kurukururi nibyou de shikai ga_

_KURUKURURI KURUKURUrin_

_Fushigida naa~!_"

She deposited the last of the dirty clothes in the laundry basket. Then she grabbed a garbage bag and donned a pair of disposable latex gloves, snapping the material against her wrist to ensure they were on tight. With that, she began cheerfully sorting through the remaining detritus littering the floor to determine what was and was not trash.

"_Hoka no koto mienaku naru no ha_

_Koi dakejanai mitai_

_Hora, KURAKURA shiteru~~~!_"

When the instrumental interlude (composed from the sounds of, among other things, scratching records and strumming banjos) kicked in following the previous verse, Maria began to whistle along insouciantly with the melody. Her cares were temporarily forgotten as she melted into the music, and she gained a bit of an extra spring to her step even as she continued going about with cleaning the room.

She was smiling brightly – cheeks rosy and dimpled, eyes twinkling and crinkled. Her hips were swaying a little bit left to right and right to left whenever she bent over to pick something up off of the floor, and her skin was glistening with the faintest sheen of the sort of light sweat characteristic of this level of physical activity for a healthy lass like Maria. Her maid uniform was looking decidedly untidy, with her blouse slipping this way or that way on her torso, her skirt getting bunched up in odd places, and several buttons coming undone over the course of her impromptu freestyle dance routine. Indeed, had she been paying a bit more attention to the state of her person, Maria likely would have been quite embarrassed to realize just _how much_ skin her rumpled and disheveled _meido-gi_ was leaving exposed. But the lyrics started up again long before Maria ever had a chance to notice this, and so she resumed her spirited sing-along.

"_GANBARO!_

_Kurukururi rippa ni naru hi ga_

_Kurukururi~ kurukururin_

_Da-i-jo-u-bu~!_"

Flicking a strand of hair out of her face, Maria made a cute face as if she were posing for a photo. She giggled inwardly, puckering her lips up and flirtatiously blowing kisses to her imaginary audience as she absentmindedly grabbed up miscellaneous pieces of trash and dumped them into the large black garbage bag.

"_'Nen zuneba hanahiraku' nante_

_Tayorinai hitorigoto_

_Demo, ganbara nakucha~~~!_"

Twirling playfully, she gracefully and skillfully stooped down to scoop up a crumpled, empty bag of _Akimichi Super!_ chips. She tossed it up into the air and stood back up, smoothly catching one bag with the other as it fell back down. Then she kicked up a wadded up tissue, which she expertly snagged out of the air and dumped into the garbage bag the second it reached eye level.

"_Kurukururi nibyou de shikai ga_

_KURUKURURI KURUKURUrin_

_Fushigida naa~!_"

Skipping gaily as she danced around the perimeter of Nagi's room, doing one final sweep for trash, she exuberantly belted out the words of the penultimate verse and "shook her money-maker", for lack of a better term.

"_Hoka no koto mienaku naru no ha_

_Koi dakejanai mitai_

_Hora, KURAKURA shiteru~~~!_"

With one final spin, her skirt twirling and fluttering in a cutely alluring manner, Maria struck a pose: one arm outstretched vertically, index finger pointing up into the air, with the other hand hovering at around chest height and cupped like it was holding up a microphone; her hips were swung out to one side with much of her weight shifted onto a single leg. Her skin was glistening with sweat. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was wide open as she sang the final words.

"_(SHU-TATA SHU-TATA Hurry up!_

_SHU-TATA SHU-TATA kaisan!_

_Hurry up!)_"

As the music wound down and Maria finished tidying up, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye.

"... Hm?" Her orbs glinted. She frowned. There appeared to be something sticking out from under Nagi's bed, wedged in between the mattress and the frame. It looked like the corner of a magazine, or perhaps a manga or comic book – from where Maria was standing, she was unable to tell with any accuracy what sort of paper it was made of, and was thus by extension also unable to accurately conclude what, precisely, the object was.

...But, on the other hand... considering where it was stowed... and considering where she had found it... most probably, it was something like... _'Ahhn... such a suspicious hiding spot...'_ Maria thought, the corners of her lips quirking downwards into a frown. A worried expression crossed her face. _'... and the lady of the house __**is**__ around that age...'_

She sighed. _'And it's only going to keep getting worse as she matures. So it's the least I can do as her maid to ensure that she is well-informed... even though I myself have no real experience with that sort of thing, either...'_ She sighed again, this time at the thought of her lack of a love life. Unbidden, an image of Hayate in a generically compromising position with herself materialized in her mind. _'... Great. And now I'm thinking about having sex with Ayasaki-kun. Fantastic. Just... fantastic.'_

She shook her head with another sigh, her eyes downward cast. _'Why, Ayasaki-kun? ... Why, Hayate? Why, oh why, must you make me feel like this, when you don't even have the decency to take responsibility for it...?'_ Her mood darkened slightly. _'... and I am far from the only one to suffer from unrequited affections for you, you know...'_ She closed her eyes._ '...In at least some ways, I think Saki-sempai might not be that far off the mark when she calls you an enemy to all women, even if her reasoning for it is a bit off...'_

With one last sigh, she hesitantly stepped forward towards her young mistress's bed. _'No, I shouldn't be thinking about that... not now, at least. Duty calls. I cannot stand by and do nothing _–_ not when there is even the minutest possibility that milady is being exposed to age-inappropriate media...!'_ She clenched one fist and held it up in front of her. Her eyes smouldered with burning conviction, and for a few seconds the air about her seemed to crackle and burst alight in sympathy to this surge of hot-blooded determination.

With only a fleeting pause due to the slightest twinge of hesitation, she stepped towards the young mistress's bed and that mysterious object so haphazardly jammed beneath the mattress – that enigmatic article which roused such warring feelings of curiosity and dread within Maria's stomach, the seat of emotion. Shiftily, she glanced first to her left, then to her right. Seeing nothing and finding no signs of anyone hiding nearby, she cautiously raised her hand up from where it had been hanging at her side to grasp the corner of this suspiciously concealed literature. With her other hand she lifted the mattress up ever-so-slightly. Then she was free to remove the manga (for that was what it was, as she could tell now that she had gotten a good enough look at it) from its hiding place.

She carefully let the mattress fall back down onto the frame before turning her attention to the manga she was now holding. She flipped it over to take a look at the cover...

Maria blinked. _'... Huh?'_ Of all the things she had dreaded and expected to see, _this _was not one of them. Upon the cover of the manga was depicted a playful-looking, trendily-dressed little blonde girl with twin pigtails seated at a small desk in an almost stereotypically 'elementary school' classroom. It was labeled with the title _Kodomo no Jikan_.

Maria face-faulted before breathing a sigh of relief as she stood back up. _'"A Child's Time"...'_ she thought,_ 'What an innocuous title.'_ She giggled softly to herself. _'Ah, I suppose Lady Nagi is simply embarrassed about reading such a cutesy manga... She really is still just a child, in more ways than one...'_

With a small smile, Maria cracked the comic (or "graphic novel", if you are feeling particularly pretentious) open to a random page. She glanced at the contents of the page in question.

"..."

Her eyes widened.

"... ... ..."

The color drained from her face.

"... ... ... ... ... ...?"

Her jaw dropped.

"... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...?-!-?"

She began trembling, a cold sweat pouring down her face.

"_**!-!-!-!**_"[**1**]

She shook her head slowly, utter disbelief transparently visible upon her face. _'... ... ... what... what is this...? I-i-is th-that girl...? ... __**OH MY GOD**__!'_ With a high pitched squeak, Maria dropped the manga like it had burned her. _'Wha-wha-wha-what kind of manga...? What kind of manga is this?-!'_

Not even a second passed before Maria's train of thought ended up bringing her to a conclusion. _'Ah... so it really was something like _that_, after all...' _she thought numbly, before clenching her fists and firmly shaking her head. _'No! I cannot let this stand! Lady Nagi is much too young to be reading things like that!'_

She paused, then frowned. _'... But even if I say that, I don't actually have any idea how to confront her about this. And it is of the utmost importance that Lady Nagi not be corrupted in such a manner while she is still just a child...'_ She sighed.

"This... this is quite troublesome. This is really something I'd rather not rush into unprepared... I think I'm going to need help on this one," she concluded softly. _'But whom? Who would be the best choice to help...?'_

She considered her options for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of each and every possible choice. _'... Not Hayate, that much is certain. This is the kind of thing that should stay between girls as much as possible. Having any male -let alone __Hayate__- give Nagi The Talk would be a recipe for disaster..._

_ '... Come to think of it, I wonder how much Hayate actually knows about that, himself...? I mean, he's a high school student, so he has no doubt covered such things from a scientific perspective via the curriculum... but, considering what I know of his childhood and his parents, I simply cannot imagine that they would have had a proper discussion with him about the Birds and the Bees... Ah, I feel sorry for him just thinking about it. Who knows what kind of psychological trauma they might have been inflicted upon him if and when they gave him The Talk...'_

She shuddered involuntarily as her mind considered the possibilities of what all Hayate might know, and how he might have come to know it.

Maria considered it rather telling that **NONE** of the best case scenarios involved his parents being the ones to tell him. Then she blinked, eyes alight with understanding, as realization hit her. "Ahhh, it's a rather disturbing thought..." she whispered to herself, "... yet at the same time, a good portion of Hayate's behavior around girls would make a great deal more sense with such a possibility as that taken into consideration..." She shook her head. "That kind of thing... It makes it rather difficult to feel anything but pity for him..." She sighed sheepishly. "...I really hope I'm wrong, though..."

She shook her head to get her mind back on track. _'Well, so much for Hayate... That's pretty much as big a no as I can give it. But... perhaps Saki-san...?' _She paused as she evaluated this option. After a moment or two, she nodded, a satisfied expression on her face. _'Yes, Saki would, without a doubt, be perfectly eager to lend a hand... And she has more experience with this than I, from dealing with Wataru-kun.'_ She nodded again, pulling a cellphone from hammer-space and dialing the numbers _8-7-6-5-3-0-9_.

She heard the tone indicating that the connection was being established. After ten seconds, the tone stopped and she heard the phone begin to ring. It rang once. Twice. There was a clicking sound, and Saki's voice -negligibly distorted by the aural digitization- came through on the other end.

_"Hello, hello. May I assume that this is Maria-san calling?"_

"You may indeed," Maria answered.

_"Okay, then. Hello, Maria-san~!" _Saki greeted cordially, _"What has you calling here at this time of night? It's pretty late, you know – almost eight thirty!"_

_'That's really not that late for a grown woman...'_ Maria thought with a sweat-drop. Then she grimaced.

If one were to be perfectly honest, Maria was really rather hesitant to inform her sempai of what she had uncovered in her mistress's room. She knew that if she went through with this, there was a very good chance that things would quickly spiral out of her control. Saki could be... unpredictable... at the best of times, and she was rather zealously anti-porn and anti-perversion – particularly when it came to minors.

... But... at the same time, Maria knew that she had to do **something**. She needed help, and Saki would be ready and willing to lend her a hand. If nothing else, she could at least use the other maid as a sounding board for possible solutions to this little dilemma. After all, Saki had experience dealing with this sort of thing, even if her methods were not exactly one hundred percent effective.

Maria nodded. Yes, this was for the best. Even if she ended up accidentally ended up setting Saki off and sending her on some sort of anti-indecency crusade, well... it would probably still be better than standing by and not doing anything at all.

_Probably_.

* * *

After explaining the gist of the situation to Saki, Maria had then suggested that they have a clandestine meeting somewhere to discuss things in further detail – somewhere they would not need to fear being overheard or interrupted by the wrong person. Saki had offered, as a suggestion, IMK – that one karaoke place downtown that was supposed to have really good security. Maria, of course, had wholeheartedly endorsed this proposal, and so -after a little idle banter- they had agreed to meet up there in an hour, at ten o'clock.

That was nearly fifty-five minutes ago.

Maria, dressed in a plain yet cute button-up early-summer coat, was standing outside the front doors of _Illustrious Makinami Karaoke_, shivering slightly in the unseasonably cool night air. The arranged time for their meeting was swiftly drawing near, but there was still no sign of Miss Kijima.

Feeling more than a little impatient, she glanced at the time on her cellphone. _'Nine fifty-three...'_ she thought, _'It's still a little early... I should hold off a bit longer on calling to check up on her – I should wait at least until she's actually late, before calling to see where she is...'_ the brunette told herself. _'... but, still...'_

"It's been nearly fifty-five minutes by now..." she dryly remarked out loud, redundantly restating what had just been exposited by the omniscient third person narrator a few paragraphs ago. "What's keeping you, Saki-san...?" she pondered to herself, ignoring the comments made within the text of this very paragraph (something to which she may or may not have been privy, depending on the status of the fourth wall at the time in question). "Are you going to get here any time soon?"

As if in response to her whispered question, there came to Maria's ears the faint sound of a rather familiar voice.

"Sorry! Sorry! Oh, I'm so sorry, sir! I wasn't watching where I was going, and now look what has happened thanks to my carelessness... Oh dear, oh dear, but this is really just such a big mess you've gotten yourself into this time, Saki!" the perpetually clumsy maid berated herself.

Pinpointing the direction from which she heard her colleague speaking, Maria turned to espy the older girl down at the other end of the block, where she appeared to be apologizing quite profusely to a lanky, silver-haired man wearing a scarf and lopsided headband. The man, for his part, was not helping matters any, acting -as he was- like his entire extended family had just been brutally murdered right before his eyes.

Giggling to herself, Marie briefly glanced back down at her cellphone to check the time again. _9:54 p.m._, was what it said.

"...Ahh, I really wish I could stay and help you, sir, but I cannot. I am so very, very sorry, but I am late -oh so late!- for a very important date! So, you see, I really must be going. I'm sure you understand..."

Smiling, Maria cupped a hand at the side of her mouth and called out, "Actually, you still have about six more minutes, Kijima-san~!"

Saki gave a start at hearing her cute little kōhai's voice. Looking up from the perversely inconsolable gentleman who was kneeling on the street corner cradling a soaking-wet red book and sorrowfully muttering "Violence-chan! Violence-chan!" over and over and over like a madness mantra, she turned her gaze towards IMK. And so she saw Maria standing outside the front doors, dressed in a cute early-summer coat and waving at her.

Grinning brightly, her mood now lightened considerably, Saki waved right back at the younger girl and hollered, "Okay, Maria-san, we'll be there in a moment~!"

Maria, back where she was standing, blinked. _'Eh? We? Who else would she have...? ...oh...' _She sighed inwardly. _'Please,'_ she prayed silently, _'Please let me be wrong. For the love of all that is good and decent, PLEASE tell she did not bring Wataru-kun along...'_

Feeling dismayed at that thought, she scanned the crowd in Saki's vicinity in search of this elusive other (or even 'others', plural). Since the crowds were rather sparse presently, what with most pedestrians opting to take the long way around rather than get too close to the crazy man mourning over-dramatically on the street corner, it did not take her very long to find a likely candidate. After all, there was only one other person within fifteen feet of Saki and the man.

_'... ... ... Well, at least it's not young master Tachibana...'_ she concluded with a shrug. That much was rather obvious, as Wataru Tachibana was not a maid (or even a maid cosplayer). Nor was he a gray-haired, blue-eyed young woman of apparent high-school age. _'... but then, who __**is**__ she...?'_

This question bothered her. She was certain she should know who that girl was, but for the life of her she could not think of _why_. It could not be just because the girl was a fellow maid. If that were the case, Maria would not be having such trouble placing a name to the girl's face. No, she was definitely _positive_ that she had seen the girl before, that she should know the girl as _something _aside from a maid, but she could not figure out what.

So when Saki and the mystery girl finally came over a few minutes later, the first thing Maria did was voice her question. "Ahn, pardon me," she stated politely, addressing the girl, "Who might you be?"

A number of emotions seemed to quickly flash across the girl's face. Confusion. Surprise. Apprehension. But then she suppressed these and flashed a bright, winning smile.

Maria's eyes widened. She knew that smile! That was the smile of the young woman whose talents as a maid were nearly equal to Maria's own... From amidst the fog of memory, there came to her these vaguely recollected words: _'... But the most important thing for a maid to have...! The defining trait of a true maid...! That is to wear a brilliant smile at all times!'_

"Wait a minute... I think... maybe... chi...ru...ka...ze...?" she mumbled to herself as she attempted to parse through a jumble of names to find the right one. "No, it starts... it starts like...'a'...'a'...'ha'...! ...yes, 'ha'...'ha'...'ha'...'r'...'ha'-'r'—erm... _hmmm_... well... definitely 'ha'...then 'r'...'r'... 'r-_something_'..." She frowned. "Ahhhhn... la~li~lu~le~lo~lo~le~lu~li~la~" she hummed a short little nonsense tune as she tried to jog her memory. "'ha'...'ra'?...'ha'...'ri'? ...'ha'...'ru'? ... Yes... yes... 'haru'... 'haru'... Haru-san!" she exclaimed, the name finally clicking in her head.

"Haru-san" (a.k.a., Chiharu Harukaze, student council secretary of Hakuō Academy and secret part-time maid for Sakuya Aizawa) sweat-dropped. _'For a moment there, I was worried she was going to say my real name...'_

Out loud, however, she said, "Neh, neh, Maria-chan, am I really so forgettable~?"

At the sound of that syrupy sweet tone, it all came rushing back to Maria, and she soon recalled her... rather marked dislike of the gray-haired maid. She glowered, remembering how it had felt to get shown up by some no-name upstart. "_**YES**_," she growled out rather venomously, prompting the other two to step back fearfully.

This whole affair was rather quickly turning out to be quite troublesome for all involved parties.

* * *

Inside a rented room at IMK, Maria, Saki, and Chiharu were all seated around a small table.

"Okay, so can I assume that you already know why I have called you here?" Maria inquired, glancing at the individuals seated around the table and observing their reactions. "It is, after all, an utra-serious life or death matter."

One of them, a gray-haired young lass whom Maria peripherally knew to be one of the Aizawa family's newest maids, fidgeted slightly in her seat, glancing nervously in her direction. The other one, a (moderately) older green-haired maid who happened to consider herself a mentor to Maria (regardless of whether or not that was how their relationship actually worked), politely but unsubtly cleared her throat_._ "A-_hem_."

"Yes, Saki-san?" Maria nodded in Miss Kijima's direction, indicating that she had the floor.

"Yes... about that, Maria-san... I have something I want to say regarding that... If I may speak freely?"

"You may," Maria said after the customary three seconds of deliberation.

"Thank you," Saki replied with a formal bow. Then she reached into her left sleeve and pulled out a note card. She cleared her throat and began. "Ahem, yes: '_I told you so_,'" she remarked with not even a hint of smugness.

Maria's eye twitched. _'Wonderful,'_ she thought sarcastically with an internal sigh. "Now, did you have any other _pertinent_ comments to add?" She asked calmly and coolly, acting the picture of politeness and decorum – aside from putting extra stress on the word 'pertinent', she showed no outward signs of the annoyance she was feeling at Saki's casual pettiness. Honestly, the girl was one of Maria's dearest friends, but when she got like _that_ it was nigh impossible to endure her. "Or are you going to sit back down?"

Saki shook her head and evenly stated, "No, I did not." However, she did not sit back down.

After waiting a few seconds for Saki to re-seat herself, Maria's spoke up. "Well, are you going to sit down, or what?"

"No," Saki responded, "Not yet."

Maria's eye twitched again. "Why not? I thought you said you didn't have anything more to say."

Saki nodded. "Correct. I _did_ say that I **did** not, but I did _not _say that I **do** not."

Maria's eye twitched twice more, and she frowned. _'Guh... Geeze, with the way she emphasized that, you'd think...'_ She blinked as realization struck. _'Oh, for the love of...'_ She groaned. "Please, Saki-san, I am not in the mood for wordplay – this is a serious matter."

Saki gave a start. Then, after a momentary pause, she laughed nervously, sheepishly scratching her cheek. "Ohhh, sorry about that," she apologized, "I didn't mean to keep you waiting, but I didn't get much sleep last night so I've sort of been randomly spacing out all day..."

"Ah, I see." Maria nodded in understanding. She knew quite well from experience how much of a hindrance sleep deprivation could be, particularly in its effects on a person's mental faculties. Unless, it seemed, that person was Hayate, but that was neither here nor there. "So what else do you have to say?"

"... heheheh..." Saki laughed nervously, sheepishly scratching her cheek, "... I forget."

Chiharu face-faulted at this frank confession. "You _forgot!-?_" she exclaimed disbelievingly, pointing an accusatory finger at the older girl.

"Yeah," Saki said nonchalantly. "But that sort of thing is bound to happen, now and then, you know. It won't do you any good to act so impatient every time you have a little setback."

"Haru" groaned. "This isn't about setbacks, you...!"

They would have continued, but the sound of a karaoke machine whirring to life interrupted their debate before it could get any further out of hand. Turning in the direction of the noise, they saw Maria holding a microphone in one hand while using the other to scroll through a list of available songs.

"Hm..." Maria chirped, spotting one with an interesting title. "'_Soramimi Cake_'... I wonder what kind of song that is...?" she idly wondered. Then she shrugged and pressed 'SELECT'. Immediately, a light cheerful tune with a slightly bombastic beat began playing through the speakers.

Reading the lyrics on the monitor, Maria began singing along with the recording.

"_LU LA LU LA piano wa sekai no yumesaku nohara ni melody_

_Kowareta tokei wo shinjite jikan wa dare no mikata?_"

Chiharu sweat-dropped. "Err... What's Maria-sempai doing...?"

"She's singing, of course," Saki answered matter-of-factly.

"_Doushite konna ni watashi no mune yasashii dareka wo matteruno?_

_Oshiete sutekina mirai MOONLIGHT, MOONLIGHT SLEEPIN'~_"

"Of course..." Chiharu sighed, rolling her eyes. "I can see _that_. But **why** is she singing?"

"She really likes karaoke," Saki said with a shrug.

"_LU LA LU LA Omoide ringo ni mezame no shoujo ga kiss shite_

_Setsunaku hirogeta hon niwa futari no bell ga naruyo~~~_"

"But she was just talking about how this meeting was an ultra-serious, life or death matter!"

"She _**REALLY**_ likes karaoke."

"_Dakishimetaikara itoshiihito_

_Mou nakanaidene GOOD BYE[__**2**__] SADNESS_

_Fushigina tobira no moji wa 'Soramimi cake~ee~'_"

Chiharu shook her head incredulously. "So she would rather goof off and sing karaoke than participate in the conference that _she_ called together?"

Saki smiled cryptically. "Who said anything about goofing off?"

"_WONDERLAND! youkoso kiminiwa FAIRYLAND! ai no mahou nano_

_LOVE'S ALL WAY! Mainichi fuwafuwa komugi no yuuwaku~_"

Blink. "Eh...?" Chiharu frowned, creasing her brow as she mulled over this statement. "Not goofing off... What are you getting at?" she asked with her eyes narrowed.

"You really are quite shrewd," Saki commented brightly with a small, cute smile. "And to answer your question: I mean precisely what I say – Maria is _not_ goofing off," she concluded obtusely right as Maria finished the final verse.

"_CAKE FOR YOU! tabetene konya wa TEA FOR YOU! seiza no ochakai_

_Mado ni tenshi no chorus kiminiwa soramimi? 'Sukidayo sukidayo no koe!_"'

Chiharu sweat-dropped again. Hearing the music stop, she sighed and called out to Maria, "Uh, Maria-sempai, when are we going to get to the point of this meeting...?"

Maria scratched her cheek sheepishly. "Ah, yes, I'm sorry about that interruption – I just needed to vent, or else I wouldn't be able think straight. But we can get on with the meeting now."

"... Oh. Okay."

* * *

"Okay," Maria began, seating herself across from Saki and Chiharu. Her face was set in a grim expression and her hands were clasped, resting in front of her on the surface of the table. "So, the reason I called you here for this meeting is... well... It's not necessarily COMPLICATED, per se, but... Ahhhh, well, it's not really _simple_, either..." she trailed off.

Saki and Chiharu were all ears, listening intently to what the brown-haired Sanzen'in maid was saying. Their eyes were firmly trained on her, and their hands were motionless at their sides.

"Well, as Saki could tell you, Chiharu," she said, addressing the gray-haired part-time Aizawa maid, "it has to do with Milady, Nagi..." Maria paused here a moment as she tried to find the right words with which to best communicate all that she wanted to tell these two. She sighed, then she continued. "You see, today, while I was cleaning her room, I... I found something rather... rather _distressing_..."

The other two leaned in closer over the table. Even Saki, who already had a good idea of what the problem was based on what she had been initially told by Maria over the phone, could feel her curiosity growing more and more intense as Maria hesitantly, haltingly, drew nearer and nearer to the climax of her story.

Chiharu, in contrast, just wanted the girl to hurry up and spit it out. She was a busy individual, and she had not particularly appreciated Saki calling her at Nagi's mansion and insisting that she hurry over to meet her. Honestly, had she known at the time that the reason Saki wanted to meet up with her was so they could meet then up with Maria, she would have simply skipped the middleman and gone right to the Bible-character-named maid while she had still been at the mansion instead of having to sneak out past both her coworkers and the SP.

"Well? What did you find that was so distressing?" the latter inquired impatiently.

"... porn."

Chiharu sighed. Of _course_ it was porn. That was what it _always_ was with kids Nagi's age. Idly, she recalled the confrontation between her and the heiress a while back, when she had caught the younger gal trying to sneak a peek into the Adults Only section that one time at Animate... While she had done her best to reprimand the precocious flaxen-haired chit then and there, she had also known that even in the best case scenario her lecture would only stay with Nagi for a short time. After all, that sort of thing had never deterred _her_ back when _she_ was Nagi's age, and she could tell that the Sanzen'in genius was a kindred spirit – a young woman of the otaku bloodline.

"Of course..." Chiharu muttered, shaking her head while a melancholy, meditative expression bent the lines of her face. "Why are kids her age always in such a hurry to grow up...?" she asked rhetorically, knowing full well what the answer to that question would be.

"Because they do not know any better..." Saki answered morosely, her eyes showing the weight of her experiences in direct contrast with her youthful appearance. They were dull and glossy, and her visage was marred with the sorrow that could only be cultivated within the soul of one who is truly mature, within the soul of one who knew regret and heartache and all the other tribulations of adulthood. In that moment, Maria and Chiharu got a glimpse of a rarely-seen side of Saki: a glimpse of the mature young woman she was – not the chary, cheery, ditz of a lass she usually pretended (and oh-so-badly _wanted_) to be.

While the clumsy, earnest, gay Saki Kijima that was known to the most of the people around her was not entirely an act, the true her was far from being the happy-go-lucky airhead she projected as a front to the rest of the world. She was wiser than she seemed, certainly, but also calmer and more firmly grounded.

There were many reasons for why Saki acted the way she did. Some of them were altruistic: such as a desire to help keep her young master from falling into a sullen, antisocial depression, as he was so prone to doing when left to his own devices – ever since he had been just a wee little thing, back when Saki truly was just as ditzy as she now acted, he had always laughed at her clumsy antics no matter how glum he got. Even now, as he was forced to make difficult decisions and taste the bitterness of adulthood while still so young, her harmless staged screw ups still managed to wring a wry smile out of the grim, cynical lad. Others were more selfishly motivated, such as a desire to cling to an ever more quickly fading youth and remain as the cute, silly young thing who had always gotten so many smiles, even though she could _feel_ the coming of the day when it would go from sweet and adorable to sad and pathetic...

Saki sighed wistfully. Maria smiled at her sympathetically.

Chiharu simply marveled at the hidden depths she had just glimpsed within Miss Kijima. _'Wow... To think that even someone like her can hold so much bitterness and regret in her heart... It is a testament, I suppose, to the cruelty of this life when not even a fool is spared from the subtle tragedies of existence...'_

She blinked, realizing what she had just been thinking.

_'... eh...? Whaaaa... what kind of thought was that? ... It's like some cosmic author was making a heavy-handed attempt at displaying "profound depth of character" by having people angst over the silliest things... Though I suppose it _would_ be a bit presumptuous of me to be making such judgements when I barely even know the girl...'_ Chiharu shook her head. "Ah, well at least it wasn't anything too high level, like NTR[**3**] or lolicon, right...?" she said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Maria was pointedly silent.

"... oh. Oh my... that... that really IS distressing..." Chiharu frowned. "... Unbelievable... I just can't imagine how a thirteen year old could _possibly_ get her hands on anything so... so... so..." she paused, before looking at Maria with a curious expression on her face and sheepishly asking, "Err... What kind was it...?"

Hesitantly, as though the words were physically painful for her to pronounce, Maria quietly answered, "...lita com..." she whimpered, the words silently floundering on her lips. With a sigh, realizing before anyone could even say anything that she would have to speak up more loudly and clearly, she repeated the words more forcefully than before. "... lolita complex... It was a lolita complex hentai...!"

Saki and Chiharu winced at this. That was Bad News.

Considering Nagi's age, gender, and orientation, it was quite clear to them just how troubling the implications of this were. The revelation that Nagi had such things in her possession cast a much more disturbing light on her relationship with the blue-eyed butler. Such things spoke less of an innocent, childish crush and more of a dangerous obsession...

The two of them suddenly found themselves dreadfully afraid of what could happen to the Sanzen'in heiress if they did not intervene in a timely manner. Even for all of her intelligence, Nagi was still just a child. There were many things Nagi was still ignorant of, and her infatuation with Hayate seemed only to grow deeper with the passage of time. If, at some point down the road, she were to try and force things with him... Well, while even Saki trusted Ayasaki's judgement and character to hold sound here, they were fully aware that if that selfsame character, that very unwavering devotion, were to be used against him... if Nagi were to _order_ him to have carnal relations with her... then that would quite likely be another matter entirely. They honestly could not say for sure whether or not Hayate would have it in him to defy a direct order from his mistress should such an eventuality come to pass, and that was perhaps the most worrying part.

Chiharu shook her head. "Okay, I'll admit that that's pretty bad, but it _could_ be worse."

"I doubt that," Maria replied glumly.

"Perhaps... but come on! If it was really that bad, then tell us _what_ (aside from the whole lolicon thing) was so bad about it," said Chiharu, placing a hand on Maria's shoulder. "We really can't be much of a help to you, if you won't fill us in on the finer details."

_"... I wonder..."_ Maria whispered softly to herself, unheard by the other two, _"... if this might have been a mistake..."_

"Haru-san is right," Saki declared suddenly, bringing Maria's attention back to the matter at hand. "We'll need you to tell us everything you know, if we're going to be helping you plan."

Maria sighed. "Yes, you two are right, of course... But that doesn't make this any easier to say... ... ..." she trailed off, uncertain how best to continue. She honestly did not know much of anything about the manga she had found in her mistress's bedroom aside from what she had managed to glean from that brief glimpse she had had of its contents...

And yet, as she considered its title, _Kodomo no Jikan_, she felt a sense of déjà vu. It felt as if she had heard that title before... as if she had heard of that manga at some point before today. But when, where, and how? She was certain that if she had heard of something like **that** manga before, she would remember it quite easily. Surely, she would not forget hearing of such a terrible work!

... Right?

Feeling doubt niggling at the back of her mind, gnawing upon the fringes of her psyche like the blighted wyrm Nidhoggr did upon the roots of Yggdrasil, Maria was silent. All of that, and many other things besides, did she ponder for a good few minutes. It was possible, she realized, if highly unlikely unlikely, but perhaps she _had _heard of that manga before. And if so, was it not then possible that either Saki or Haruko might have also heard of it? And if one of them had heard of it before, then perhaps they would know more about it than she herself did...

"Tell me," said Maria, addressing the other two maids, "Have either of you ever heard of _Kodomo no Jikan_?"

Saki and "Haru" both nodded.

"Yes."/"Yeah."

Maria smiled. "Okay then, how much do you know about it?"

Saki scratched her cheek sheepishly. "Ah, not much, I'm afraid, though I think I remember Wataru-kun talking about seeing if he could find an uncensored version of it for his customers..." she frowned. "... I do hope he is not trying to sell pornography under my nose...!"

"Well, it _is_ a video rental store, so it's inevitable that he would want to cash in on the profits from selling adult movies," Chiharu said with a shrug. "And honestly, going by what I know, there are two separate series called _Kodomo no Jikan_. One is a hentai OAV, and the other is an anime based on a somewhat infamous (but technically non-adult) manga."

Maria frowned. "Huh? Are you sure about that...?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because what I found in milady's room was a manga with the title _Kodomo no Jikan_..."

"Yeah, I figured that was the case..." Chiharu responded.

"Eh?" Maria stared at the girl. "What? Why?"

"Because the pornographic one does not, from what I understand, have anything in it that could be construed as lolicon."

Maria's eyes widened. "No... Are you actually saying...?"

Chiharu smiled sheepishly, shrugging. "Yup. What you found wasn't actually porn."

Maria shook her head, sputtering. "Buh... wha... no... It...!"

Chiharu and Saki could practically _see_ the steam coming out of Maria's ears as her brain went into overdrive, trying against all hope to reconcile this revelation with what she had seen.

"B-b-b-be that as it may, surely it is at least still meant for mature audiences, and not for someone milady's age...!"

"Ahh... actually..." Chiharu murmured softly.

Maria hissed in spite of herself through clenched teeth, startling the other two. "You can't be serious... Surely you can't truly mean that something so... so... so...!"

Chiharu smiled apologetically. "Yeah, er, sorry... Nagi _is_ a little on the young side of its target demographic, but she's remarkably mature for her age—"

Maria could not help but snort derisively at this comment.

"—and it's aimed at girls ages thirteen through twenty-four. I've actually read some of it, myself, and I've got to say that it's actually not nearly as bad as it might seem. Sure, it has a good bit of questionable content, but once you get past that you can see that it also has a deep, meaningful story and incredibly compelling characters!-!" she concluded passionately, her eyes burning with the fire of an otaku's soul.

Maria and Saki sweat-dropped.

"Ah, is that so... So does that mean that Wataru _isn't_ selling pornography?"

"Eh." Chiharu shrugged nonchalantly. "For all I know, he very well could be, but that's just part and parcel of running a successful video rental business in this day and age. You can't just cater to your own tastes – you've got to appeal to the consumer base as well. If it's simply the thought of your master handling adult media that bothers you, then you could always handle that part of the business yourself. ... if it exists, at any rate."

Saki shivered at that thought. _'Erk... I'd really rather not. But if it's for the sake of Wataru-kun and the success of his business, then... then I suppose I could swallow my pride... For his sake.'  
_

Maria, however, was not following this exchange.

She frowned, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair. "Harrumph!" She glared at the ceiling, wearing a monocle that was not there a second ago. She sniffed imperiously as her lips slowly set themselves into a cute cross between a pout and a scowl. She sulked. "Tsuuuun..."

This time it was "Haru-san"'s turn to sweat-drop. She was soon joined by a sighing Saki.

"Ahhh, are Haru-chan's words really so difficult for you to accept?" Miss Kijima asked her pouting junior.

"Tsuuuun."

"A... aha..." Saki chuckled nervously. "I see... But at the same time I just cannot imagine that it could have possibly been bad enough to reduce my talented kōhai to _this_."

"That's because _you_ didn't see what **I** saw," Maria snapped, her eyes narrowed. "... Something like that... It is inconceivable that anything like that manga, age-appropriate or not, could have possibly come into milady's possession without my knowledge. It's not the manga itself that has me so frustrated, but the fact that I do not know nearly as much about milady and her life as I would have thought. It's... depressing. I feel like... like... I don't know. It's like, if I can't keep her safe, if I can't keep an eye on her at all times, then what's the point? Have I outlived my purpose...? Does milady no longer need me to take care of her...? I feel... I feel so, so... so... ... ... _tsuuuun_..." she sighed halfheartedly, wilting visibly.

"Haru-san" was silent. It was an awkward sort of silence. She did not have anything to say to Maria that would cheer her up. She had nothing to say that would be of any use to the other girl in her present mood. The only motivational speeches she had were all ones geared towards invigorating struggling artists. And Chiharu _highly_ doubted that what Maria needed right now was a rousing homily espousing the virtues of passion and dedication for one who would choose to walk the long and arduous path of a _dōjinka_ or _mangaka_.

But, luckily for all involved, Saki was there to help.

"Don't feel bad, Maria," said the verdette, going around to the other side of the table and seating herself beside the angsting brunette. "You are not alone!-!"

"...tsuuuun...?"

Saki smiled warmly. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a small white business card. "Here," she said, holding it out for Maria to take.

Maria took it.

"We meet twice a week every Tuesday and Thursday at the local convention center, room one-oh-eight. The meetings are in the evening, and they go from four to five-thirty. We have free concessions (usually juice and cookies courtesy of the center) and pamphlets on how to deal with the sort of issues that come with masters and mistresses going through puberty."

Maria, reading the business card, arched an eyebrow. "Magic...alm?" she said questioningly.

"M.A.G.I.C.A.L.M.," Saki corrected, "It's an acronym: Maids Against General Indecency in Comics and Assorted Licensed Media. They're a support group slash activist foundation for maids dealing with pubescent charges. They can help you with everything from childish crushes to smuggled porn."

Maria frowned. "Okay... I get the 'support group' part, but... _'activist foundation'_...? What, is it like MADD or D.A.R.E.?"

Saki nodded. "Yes, in a sense."

Maria sweat-dropped. _'Ahhhn... Why does this seem faintly ominous...?'_

* * *

_Omake: A Portrait of Things to Come...?_

Ayumu Nishizawa frowned as she took in her surroundings. "Where am I?" she wondered, even as she beheld the glorious vista spread out all around her. In every direction all that could be seen of the land was an extensive network of interconnected lakes and rivers carved into green, rolling hills and expansive temperate forests. The world, from her perspective, seemed at once both miniscule and immense. The clear-flowing veins of the countryside reached out into the horizon far off in the distance. The protuberant sloping mounds of earth which comprised much of the landscape looked like tiny, grass-covered pimples from where she was standing.

Thick, tall, old growth forests of elm and oak and spruce and pine, teeming with enough life and history to surpass any metropolis, dominated the grassy plains and slooped hills. The leafy green canopies glistened with dew and swayed gently in the breeze, causing a curious interplay of light and shadows to occur upon their mighty boughs. Ghostly, fleeting visions of strange, elfin figures danced through the sun-dappled treetops singing light, airy songs as old as the hills. This was a land forgotten to time and man alike. There was a queer, elder power in this country – this was a wondrous, magical realm, and all things within it were overflowing with an innate vitality.

Something about this place seemed to resonate with Ayumu's spirit. Within her mind's eye she envisioned twisting, intertwined leylines composed of the wyrd, cosmic energies running throughout the land. Somehow, in one way or another, Ayumu _knew_, without even ever having learned, that this place was not of the temporal realm. This was a land seperate from the material plane, cut off, by some great power, from the normal flow of time ere even the fabled first evil.

Ayumu smiled serenely, letting the metaphysical essence of this place seep into her soul, soothing her weariness and strengthening her spirit. She was perfectly still and at one with the land. She stood atop a mountain, perched upon its highest peak. She inhaled deeply. The air was thin, yes. But it was also fresh and cool and pure, so she had only a little difficulty breathing it. It stung slightly at her throat and lungs, for they were accustomed only to the polluted air of the modern world. But she endured the pain, knowing without knowing that it would soon pass. And pass it did: the pain fading to itching and the itching fading to nothing as the scarred tissue of her respiratory system was healed by the restorative properties of this mountain air. Sighing contentedly as she breathed the air in and out, silently reveling in the complete and utter lack of the minor aching and soreness that she only now realized had plagued her for as long as she could recall, Ayumu smiled and turned her gaze upwards.

The heavens above were as a flawless canvass stretched over the earth, and the sun was shining down upon the world, illuminating all that she surveyed. The sky was the deepest, darkest, loveliest, and lightest shade of blue she had ever seen in all her days – it was 'blue' as 'blue' would have been, could have been, _should_ have been in a perfect world. It was a 'blue' brighter and more vibrant by far than any hue, tint, or shade of that color to exist in the fading material realm. White clouds like heaped masses of purest snow-white cotton roiled about her feet, reflecting and refracting her luminescence in a glorious interplay of light and air and water and color. Ayumu, standing where she was on the mountaintop, found herself in the very midst of those clouds. They were a great, nebulous cluster of glittering mist and vapor. It was milky white yet tinted with every imaginable hue. Here and there in the fogbanks, ever shifting and changing, Ayumu could discern gleaming swathes of varied colors ever changing and shifting: red and orange and pink and gold and blue and purple and green and silver and so many other colors besides – some were ones for which she had no names, some were ones for which there _were_ no names, and some were even ones that did not actually exist anywhere on the electromagnetic spectrum of light.

Ayumu silently marveled at this gorgeous sight, stricken dumb with an overwhelming sense of awe at this quintessential example of the regal majesty of nature and the subtle beauty of creation. She held out a hand, unconsciously groping at the insubstantial air and water and vapor and ice as if she was hoping to clutch within her fingers some token of this natural wonder that she might keep this memory with her, unfaded, forever and ever. But hands of flesh and bone and blood and sinew -the hands of mortal men- were not made to hold light, nor to snatch color nor grasp at mist or aether. Thus, her hands closed over naught but empty air – the only token of her efforts was the freezing vapor and accompanying water droplets which clung to the skin of her palms and knuckles and fingers and wrists, chilling her hands and inhibiting their articulation until Ayumu could scarcely bend her fingers one way or the other, until her hands were frozen into a shape not unlike that of the gnarled arthritic claws of the ghastly Yama-uba, the mythical mountain hag _y__ōkai_.

Suddenly, there came to her a voice strangely familiar. The words it said were cryptic, but she could not help but feel compelled to take them to heart.** "Kings rise and fall. Flowers bloom and then wilt. The cycle ends to begin again. **

** "But when blossom returns to seed, and seed returns to fruit, and fruit returns to blossom... then shall be a time of great evil****, and a time for heroes to rise****. The heavens will tremble, and all things will be cast into upheaval. Gods shall wage war amongst themselves upon the face of the earth. Nothing will survive unchanged ****– it will be the end of the world as ye know it.**

** "Beware the scion of Kronus – the betrayers branded with the lathspell stones! They hide themselves as friends, but they bring only discord and pain. Do not be deceived by them, or not even love shall remain with you."**

The words of the voice echoed throughout the land, which began to melt before Ayumu's very eyes. Soundlessly, with neither fanfare nor announcement, that pristine, primeval world softly faded into another. Ayumu frowned slightly in mild confusion, but she was otherwise unperturbed by this.

At last, after what seemed like hours, the bizarre spatial (or perhaps temporal?) transition was complete.

Ayumu looked around, frowning more deeply. Where ever (or when ever) she now was, it was the complete opposite of where (or when) she had been prior. Where the last place (or time) had been a full, vibrant ecosystem with hills and rivers and forests and plants and animals, this realm was utterly dead. Or... no... not dead... That would be inaccurate.

After all, to say that something was dead was to imply that it had once been alive. But this place... Nishizawa simply could not imagine that this world had ever been alive. It was barren. Empty. _Blank._

Yes, that was perhaps the best way to describe it. This place was utterly devoid of anything distinctive or memorable. There were no plants, but the ground was neither sandy nor rocky. The soil was not damp, but neither was it dry – it simply _was_. The land was flat, or very nearly so.

As for the air, it was neither hot nor cold. It was completely odorless and clear. But it was not clear like that mountain air had been – that had been the clear of goodly healthful air. The air here, however, was an empty sort of clear, like there was nothing in it good _or _bad.

At some point, as she mused on this strange country, Nishizawa realized that she was walking, as was said by her given name. Without even knowing it, she had spent the last several (seconds? minutes? hours? days?) walking down a road that she had not even consciously noticed until just then.

Now, she was uncertain how she could tell it was a road, for there were no markings to delineate it and the ground across which she strode was absolutely indistinguishable from anywhere else in this hollow realm, but some infernal part of her **insisted** that it _really was_ a road. It refused to tell her where she was going, however, and try as she might Ayumu could not wrench conscious control of her legs away from this seemingly rebellious faction within her psyche. So she was forced to simply go along with herself and pass the time however she could.

Finally, after an excruciatingly long trek, she felt her legs stop moving. Control of her limbs was back in her own hands!

Unfortunately, the abruptness of the switch meant she was unprepared to take over, and so her legs almost immediately buckled limply. She fell down with a startled yelp.

Grumbling impotent oaths as she stood back up, Ayumu was surprised to actually see something in this seemingly blank plane. Before her, abruptly becoming visible a few feet before her feet, was the road her subconscious had been insisting was there the whole time. It was a very unremarkable road, or it would have been, save for the fact the it was the first even remotely distinctive thing she had seen in who-knows-how-many miles.

It was neither wide nor narrow, and it did not seem to be either particularly straight or winding. Looking at it, she could not even discern whether it was paved or simply a dirt road as she had no real frame of reference for how such things would look in this place. Tilting her head up slightly from its more-or-less downward-facing position, she saw that a few meters ahead the road split in two. In addition, at the fork in the road was a granite plaque of subtly alien geometry. To either side of this were two elegantly hewn monolithic gates which stood astride the two separate paths. One gate was of blackest obsidian, and the other was of purest white marble.

Moving closer, she noticed that there seemed to be a message on the granite marker... And indeed, looking at it up close, she found that she could quite clearly discern glyphs whittled into the massive stone fixture. On the plaque of granite which stood betwixt the two divergent roads were these words written:

_"Heed well my teachings,_

_For they are your sole guide._

_For everything, there is a price:_

_For a moment of pleasure, an eternity of darkness;_

_For a peaceful rest, a lifetime of pain._

_Choose wisely, but know this:_

_All things of this world are fleeting,_

_And their destiny is the darkness of Hades. _

_There is but one path to Elysium,_

_And all other roads lead to Tartarus."_

She turned to the marble gate, which above it bore the inscription:

_"Go down the wide, paved road_

_To where the flame never dies_

_And the worm never perishes,_

_Where there is endless groaning and gnashing of teeth._

_There shall you learn humility."_

Then she turned to the gate of obsidian, on the other side of the plaque. It too had a inscription above it – this one reading:

_"Go up the narrow, winding path_

_To where pain is soothed _

_And tears are dried away,_

_Where the air resounds with songs of joy and praise._

_There shall you learn mercy."_

Lastly, she turned back to the granite plaque. She was strangely unsurprised to find that its inscription had changed to parallel those that were etched above the two opposing gates.

_"Take the middle way, the golden mean,_

_To where the wicked pay for their crimes _

_And the righteous bide their time,_

_Where there is nor light nor dark _– _only self._

_There shall you learn patience."_

Ayumu frowned. What to do? Which path to take? What was the right way?

She did not know. She had no idea what she was supposed to do. So she stood there motionlessly even until her body petrified. And there she stayed for thousands of years until finally, after countless weary millennia, the last remnants of her body were ground into dust and scattered by the four winds to the four corners of the earth. Even then, however, her spirit remained at that crossroads. Even then, she stayed, standing there for all eternity, forever paralyzed in the pain of her indecisiveness.

This continued until at last after uncounted eons even Death itself fell prey to death. This ushered in the final verse of the Song of Creation as incanted by the last mortal creature alive, invoking the name of the Eldest One to come and fulfill the doom of all things temporal: the Ultimate Fate of Creation even as it had been pronounced at the very dawn of time. And so the greatest and most terrible of all the primeval powers in all of existance descended into the impure world, riding forth in all of Its horror and splendor – a pulsing, writhing universe of putrid, reeking flesh and sallow-gray chitin.

It opened a third of Its innumerable bottomless black eyes. From the the center of Its gruesome, ponderous bulk extended a long, bony, squamous arm like that of an emaciated giant. Upon Its hand were seven long, slender digits – each one with seven joints and the complex articulation characteristic of opposable thumbs.

It then opened three of Its twelve mouths and pronounced the first of the forty "_eschaton logos_" words of power. One by one, It chanted each verse of this unutterable rime of apocalyptic invocation. Into the palm of Its hand was conjured an immeasurably immense quantity of anti-matter, enough to equal the mass of 40^40 red giants. And yet the sheer scale of the Eldest One was so incomprehensibly vast that this super-sized anti-matter star seemed as less than the least mote of dust next to It.

With a great, rumbling, bellowing, thunderous _**ROAR**_ It uttered the Final Word; then It bent the grasp of Its hand in upon itself, closing it into a massive gnarled fist. In a single instant, all matter in existence was annihilated. Everywhere, there was blinding white light as the Eldest One introduced a particle of anti-matter to every existing particle of matter, converting all existant tangible sunstances into energy which, now loosed all at once upon the universe, flared brilliantly with the last and greatest radiance of life and death.

Then the darkness came, and what few shreds remained of the withered psyche of the one once called Ayumu Nishizawa were swallowed whole by the infinite, yawning abyss at the end of all things.

* * *

Ayumu awoke with a start, panting and covered in sweat. She looked around. A moment passed as she drowsily took stock of her surroundings.

She blinked.

"... It... was a dream...?" she paused, before nodding shakily. "Yes... just a dream... it was all just a dream... Phew..." She breathed a sigh of relief, used the back of her hand to wipe some sweat from her brow, and laid her head back down onto the pillow. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to once more drift off into sleep.

* * *

[**1**]: These four exclamation points all by themselves (or is it 'exclamation marks'? it's been a while since I've actually used the term, so I can't remember which it is... *~*) are a completely intentional artistic choice and _not_ the result of trying to stick together a bunch of different words without spacing. Seriously.

... Damnit, that sounds like a lie even to me. Which is kind of funny/depressing (funpressing?), because that really is the truth.

[**2**]: This is not a typo. This is how it was written at animelyrics dot com for both the Japanese and English lyrics for this song, I have only made minor modifications to the way the lyrics are transcribed here in order to fit them as sentences being spoken (or sung, rather) in a dialogue format.

[**3**]: The definition of NTR, as listed on Fakku dot net: _"Netorare (寝取られ), also referred to as NTR or cuckold, is a genre where the intent is to cause an emotion of deep jealousy or distress in the reader. A direct translation of the word results in the definition "having your lover taken from you" or "to have something taken from you while you sleep". This is often accomplished by having main protagonist's loved one seduced away from them, with or without their knowledge."_

This is, in part, a reference/homage to a scene in the manga (chapter 310, pages 11-12)

Nagi (entering Cafe Donguri): "Excuse me!-!"

Ayumu: "Oh, Nagi-chan."

Hayate: "What are you doing here, milady?"

Nagi: "I was at a dead end in coming up with an idea for my manga... so I'm looking for something that brings a tightness to my chest."

Hayate: "Something that brings a tightness to your chest? If there's anything I can do, just tell me!-!"

Ayumu: "Yeah!-! I'll help too, Nagi-chan."

Nagi: "I see... Sorry about the suddeness, Hayate. But... could you go crossdress?"

Hayate: "... ... Ehh!-? What are you saying? I don't want to wear a maid uniform again!-?"

Nagi: "No!-! You won't be wearing a maid uniform!-! I already know you're cute while wearing clothes like that!-! That won't tighten my chest anymore. So instead of that... I want you to wear the street clothes... that she came here in!-!" (Points at Ayumu)

Chiharu (Thinking): _'Wearing the clothes of a girl he knows!-? NTR? That's pretty high level for a thirteen year old!-!'_

* * *

**A/N: Ah, this chapter turned out much longer than I had planned. So much so, in fact, that I ended up basically cutting off a big part of the plot I'd had planned for it. I was originally planning to have it continue from where Saki invites Maria to a M.A.G.I.C.A.L.M. meeting and have Maria galvanizing them to go on a big anti-indecency crusade, only for... well, here, I'll just put up the original outline I had planned for this chapter:**

**_ Some People Say the Japanese are too Suggestible When it Comes to Manga [working title]: _**

_**An undetermined length of time after the events of the last arc, Maria, while picking up in Nagi's room, finds a copy of Kodomo no Jikan. Thinking it must be some kind of cutesy shōjo manga, she opens it up. Hilarity ensues (?).  
**_

**_To include: 1.) Maria meeting with Saki and a few others about the manga. 2.) Maria forming or joining a media-watchdog group called 'Maids Against General Indecency in Comics and Associated Licensed Media', or M.A.G.I.C.A.L.M. 3.) Maria appearing on a talk show to speak about her movement and rail against various things wrong with society. 4.) Maria runs into Kaworu Watashiya at the grocery store. Not realizing who the woman is, Maria strikes up a conversation about the price of watermelons. After the conversation, Maria happens to see a picture of the author of Kodomo no Jikan. Realizing that Kaworu Watashiya is more-or-less just another ordinary person trying to make a living, Maria disbands her organization and calls off her crusade against general "immorality"._**

**So yeah, aside from the whole length issue, I also shortened the plot here because the latter part would, perhaps, have been too OOC for Maria even by this fic's incredibly lenient standards regarding consistency of characterization, as well as potential time-scale wonkiness. **

******(On a side note, notice how this outline contains no references to this chapter having musical-like stuff? Yeah, I kind of came up with that while writing it. **Aside from that, I had also planned to include a third song: ** "**_**Motteke! Se-ra-fuku**_**" - the opening theme for **_**Lucky Star**_. Cutting this third song went hand in hand with reducing the length of this chapter's story arc, as there was not really anywhere for me to put it without it seeming rather forced.)

**Lastly, if you have something that you particularly like (or dislike) about this or other chapters, review and let me know what it is so I can keep this fic enjoyable for you, the reader. This is especially important, now, because we are coming close to a potentially VERY BIG point of divergence in regards to what direction the plot will be taking. With the way the present outline for the story is, it could very well end up heading into considerably more shōnen territory. Which I'm of two minds about because on the one hand, that would perhaps flow more easily into my grand scheme for the plot of this fic, but it would also mean having to either greatly reduce Nishizawa's role in the story or giving her incredibly improbable power-ups (I mean, aside from the whole Spiritual Manifestation thing). Which upsets me, because I like Nishizawa in large part _because_ she is the most "normal" member of Hayate's harem, and I would hate to change that any more than absolutely necessary. So review and let me know what you guys think!**

**Stats prior to updating:**

_Hayate the Combat Butler - Rated: M - English - Humor/Adventure - Chapters: 15 - Words: 93,387 - Reviews: 25 - Updated: 9-10-11 - Published: 2-27-10 - Ayumu & Hayate_

**And additionally:**

_Hits: 7,478  
_

_Favorites: 23_

_Alerts: 26_

_C2s: 2  
_

**Chapter Added: **_10-2-11 [October 2, 2011]_

**P.S.: Holy crap, I just realized that this chapter puts me over 100k words for this story... WOO! And I am just a big enough dork to actually enjoy being the author of the first fic in this section to breach the 100k words landmark (though judasuu honestly nearly beat me there by almost twenty days with his fic _Romeo Syndrome: Count Down to Heaven!_ which clocked in at 99 1/2k words when he finished it. So kudos to judasuu, especially since he managed to write all that in a much shorter time than myself... though I actually haven't read the fic, myself, so I don't actually know where it falls quality-wise – as far as I know, it could be anything from utter drivel to an unrivaled modern masterpiece. But finding out otherwise would take time and effort that could be devoted towards working on this fic. Or even finding a job.)**

**TTFN!  
**


	17. Life, Love, and Running Gags

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A _Hayate the Combat Butler _fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: Thanks to Cyberchao X, Shuji Nonohana, and TehSanity for their reviews~! **

**With that out of the way, I feel I should warn readers that the first real part of this chapter takes some cues from one of my other fics, _FML_. Or rather, since the first part of this chapter was written up before _FML_ was even a twinkle in my eye, I should say that _FML_ takes some cues from the first part of this chapter. Because we all love us some Hayatangst now and then.  
**

**Also, as a random musing: In HnG, Luck be not a lady. Either that, or she's yandere for Hayate and hates that he keeps charming other girls. ... Actually, considering Hayate's history with yandere chicks (I'm looking at YOU, Miss Tennō****s **ಠ**_**ಠ**), that could very well be likely. **

**Hahaha, ahhh... You gotta feel sorry for that poor bastard, especially when rereading the first chapters of the manga. Shun Ayasaki and [Jane Doe] are total assholes. Just don't think too hard about how the fuck those deadbeats managed to extort a hundred fifty million yen (~1.5 x 10^6 USD) from the Yakuza – real world logic has no place in HnG.**

**Speaking of Hayate's one point five mil debt, I did some calculations based on the in-series estimation that it would take him forty (40) years to pay it back working as Nagi's butler:**

**¥ 150,000,000 / 40 yrs. = ¥ 3,750,000 per year towards debt**

**¥ 1 = $ 0.013**

**3,750,000 x 0.013 = ~ $ 48,750 [USD] per year towards debt**

**And Japan's average total annual personal income per capita is Int$ 12,076 (disposable) and Int$ 14,360 (gross) **[1]

**... Now, since I'm not that good at math beyond the basics and don't have the best sense of what is and is not "a lot of money", I can't say for sure what this means regarding Hayate's income. That said, it only makes it even more unbelievable that his parents could have possibly borrowed so much money from the Yakuza. And on the matter of their decision to sell Hayate's organs to the yaks to pay off their debt, well... I'm not sure, since I have no idea what the going price for human organs on the Japanese black market is or was, but I highly doubt that a single teenage boy's organs could POSSIBLY fetch enough cash to cover a hundred fifty million yen debt. **

**But that's just me.**

**WARNING: This is NOT a serious story. Except for when it is, which is admittedly a good deal more frequent than I would have predicted when I first started working on it. This chapter contains some explicit bedroom-style dialogue that might as well have been ripped straight from a hentai dō****jin. Additionally, there is some overwrought melodramatic pity partying and other such depressing shit in the first part of the chapter, and there is at least one implied yuri threesome that may or may not have actually occurred – "Schrödinger's Yuri", if you will. **

* * *

**Last time on 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

* * *

_"We meet twice a week every Tuesday and Thursday at the local convention center, room one-oh-eight. The meetings are in the evening, and they go from four to five-thirty. We have free concessions (usually juice and cookies courtesy of the center) and pamphlets on how to deal with the sort of issues that come with masters and mistresses going through puberty."_

_Maria, reading the business card, arched an eyebrow. "Magic...alm?" she said questioningly._

_"M.A.G.I.C.A.L.M.," Saki corrected, "It's an acronym: __M__aids __A__gainst __G__eneral __I__ndecency in __C__omics and __A__ssorted __L__icensed __M__edia. They're a support group slash activist foundation for maids dealing with pubescent charges. They can help you with everything from childish crushes to smuggled porn."_

_Maria frowned. "Okay... I get the 'support group' part, but..._ 'activist foundation'_...? What, is it like MADD or D.A.R.E.?"_

_Saki nodded. "Yes, in a sense."_

_Maria sweat-dropped. _'Ahhhn... Why does this seem faintly ominous...?'

* * *

**Now, for the next installment of 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

.

.

.

**Chapter Fourteen:**

**The Dawn of a New Day Brings Many Opportunities for Life, Love, and Running Gags!**

_"Uwaa~ah... Hayate-kun... Ufuuu~uun!"_

___Thump-ump._

___Ba-dump._

_"A-heeeen~! Nyuuu, Hayate~! ... **Ahhn!** Hahn! Nooo... not there...!"_

___Thump-ump._

___Bump._

___Ba-dump._

_"Kyaaah~! It's so BIG...! **Eyah!** I-it-it hurts! ... ... ... AHHHN! It's filling me up...! No! My womb...! It's hitting my womb...! HAYATE-KUUU~UUN...!-! UFUUU~UUN!"_

___Thump-ump._

___Bump._

___Smack. Smack. Smack._

___Ba-dump._

_"My pussy...! Ahhhn... It's on fire... It's like my pussy is on fire...! ... No, please... Ow! Ow! Ufuu~un! Please, please, please, please, please—! Aiieeee~! Faster! Harder! Deeper! OH GOD, OH GOD, DON'T STOP, DON'T STOP!-! OH PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE DON'T STOP!-!"_

_Thump-ump._

_Bump._

_Smack. Smack. Smack._

_Squelch. Squelch._

_Ba-dump._

_"Yes! Yes! YES!-! Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes! Fill me up with your seed! Oh God, **yes!** YESYESYES!-!-! Fuck me! Come in me! Make me your little slut! Use me as your sperm-toilet! I want you inside me! I WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABIES!"_

_Spluuuuuurt._

_"HAAYAATEE-KUUUN~~~!"_

_"NIISHIIZAAWAA-SAAAN~~~!"_

* * *

Hayate awoke with a start. "...Nishizawa-san...!" he gasped frantically, only to realize that she was not there.

He blinked as his sleepy mind took in his surroundings.

_'Oh... it was a dream...'_ He sighed._ '...It happened again...'_

Feeling the dull ache in his loins and the wet, sticky mess in his pajamas, he groaned miserably. _'... Ahhh... I'm so sorry, Nishizawa-san... To treat you in such a disgusting manner... Oh, how despicable I've become!'_ he lamented mentally. _'Even if it is only in a dream, you deserve far better than to be sullied by someone like me. ...For me to be using your image in such a loathsome manner... I'm certain you would be horrified and disgusted, if you knew...'_

He shook his head. _'And this is the third night in a row, now... My third wet dream about you in as many days. ... ... ...Ever since getting back from Greece, I've been having these dreams... Why?'_ He sighed. _'I keep having these dreams, these fantasies... I can't get them to stop... I can't stop thinking these dreadful, lewd thoughts...! And not just about Nishizawa-san... No... everyone... every girl...! Gah! I disgust myself!'_

He frowned, eyes dim. _'... Oooh... It's never been be this bad, before... Before, even at my most lustful, I never had such... such... such HORRIBLE thoughts. But now I can't stop thinking such _degrading_ things about them, about the people around me...'_

"I'm out of control..." he moaned aloud. This was the third night in a row that this had happened – the third night in a row that he had experienced nocturnal emissions while dreaming such lewd, perverted dreams about his former classmate. It was developing into a worrying pattern for the self-loathing butler, and he grew more disgusted with himself every time it happened.

And Nishizawa was far from the only girl being victimized by the exponentially surging perversion of Hayate's imagination. No, not even close. ... Ever since what had happened between him and Athena in Mykonos during Golden Week... Ever since then, he had been having more and more dirtier and dirtier thoughts, fantasies, and daydreams about virtually any and every even remotely attractive girl he knew.

And he knew a _**LOT**_ of pretty girls.

It was getting to the point that he could not even look at a cute lass without imagining her naked or finding himself wanting -_oh so badly_- to give into that lust and do... _things_... to them. Terrible, filthy, degrading things.

This was incredibly distressing to Hayate, because while he was not exactly a stranger to libido (no matter _how much_ he tried to repress it out of a misled sense of being unworthy of romantic pursuits), he had never felt it so STRONGLY. His libido had never before been so uncontrollable. He had never before been so severely affected of the temptations of the flesh. His resolve, his conviction, his belief in what Athena had taught him, had never before been so _weak_. With the way he was now, it was like there was some volatile accelerant feeding an exponentially explosive growth of the flames of desire within his gut.

And Hayate was disgusted with himself for this.

_'A-tan...'_ he thought sadly as he threw off his covers and got out of bed, idly rubbing the sleep from his eyes. _'...Athena...'_

_ "Go away!" she screamed, pushing the blue-haired butler off of her. "Go home! Forget about me!" Her face was contorted with anger, and tears were streaming down her cheeks._

_ Hayate reached out to touch her, to hold her, to calm her. "A-tan... I..."_

_ She lashed out once, striking his hand. "Don't touch me!" she snarled. "I HATE YOU!"_

_ Hayate's eyes widened. Those words... they tore at his heart like a scourging dagger._

_ And yet... he would not give up. Not again. Not like this. "No..." he gasped out, "I can't abandon you... not again..." Bitter tears welled up in his eyes. "A-tan, I love—"_

_ With a sound like a whip cracking, Athena slapped Hayate._

_ He recoiled, his cheek stinging from the blow. His eyes glistened sorrowfully as he stared at his former mistress disbelievingly. He stood in place, unmoving – the shock was too great for him to endure. His legs truckled, and he collapsed to his knees_

_ Athena held up her hand, ready to strike him again. "__**Damn **__you..." she hissed through clenched teeth. Her eyes were red and her frame was visibly wracked with her sobbing. "I _**hate **_you." _

_ "LEAVE!" she roared, leveling a loathing glare at Hayate._

_ He flinched, but he would not yet depart._

_ "Why...?" he asked._

_ At that question, Athena's demeanor abruptly changed. She sneered, a hideous expression marred an otherwise fair and lovely visage. "Because I __**hate**__ you. I always have. Ever since I first saw you, I only ever wanted to see you suffer, so I plotted. I brought you to my home. I made you my servant. I taught you to trust me. To love me. And I waited. I waited for the right moment to bring forth the full weight of my hatred and _**break **_you._

_ "I led you to believe that, by seeking out your family while you were gone, you had betrayed me." She laughed, if it could be truly called such, for the noise of it was harsh and alien – it was a despicable sound, vile and cruel. An orc-laugh, the taunting jeers of sadistic imps. "And on that day, I _**broke**_ you. I drove you back into the arms of your neglectful, uncaring family to once more suffer for their sins." She paused, her eyes gleaming coldly. "Ah, but it was even worse than before, wasn't it?" She paused briefly before continuing, "Yes, of course it was. After all, I had taken you in, shown you love and understanding even as you waited on me hand and foot. It made your life with them so much worse than it had been. Before you met me, all you had ever known was that life. It was all you knew. You resented it, but only as much as anyone would resent their lot in life. Intellectually, you knew that things could be better, but you could not truly quantify the discrepancy between how things are and how they should be. You had a vague idea of 'better', but that was all._

_ "So I showed you a better life. Yes! I showed you trust and understanding! I taught you love and hope! And then, just like that" she snapped her fingers, "I took it all away. Once more, you had nothing. Only this time the hurt and the emptiness was a thousand times greater than it had ever been before, now that you knew what happiness was like! After all," she smirked coldly, "You cannot truly miss something unless you've had it."_

_ She watched Hayate's reaction. He was hurt. He was losing himself in doubt, beginning to question everything he had once thought absolute and immutable. It was time for the master stroke. "Do you hate me?" she asked him, her expression stoic._

_ His only answer was trembling as tears stained his cheeks, clenching his fists until the palms of his hands began to bleed. _

_ Athena continued. "Hate me, if you wish. If you desire to kill me and have vengeance, then run. Run and hide and live in an unsightly manner, surviving until the day you can come before me with eyes like mine." She coldly glared at the weeping young man. "It makes no difference what you do, but if you leave now and never return, then I will not follow. If you forget me, then I shall forget you as well. Go now, and live however pleases you. But remember this:" she whispered, swiftly and smoothly retrieving and uncovering a sheathed dagger from down her blouse before pressing the razor edge of the cold, naked blade against his throat. "You live only because I deem it amusing to let you do so. You are a worm, and I WILL end you should your existence ever come to prove a nuisance. So go. Live like the worm you are. Get married. Be fruitful and multiply. And always remember that you and your descendants live only because it would have been pointless to kill a worthless wretch like you. Now __**GO! BEGONE! **__lest my humor shift and alter my decision."_

_ He looked at her one last time before turning and running._

Hayate sighed, staring morosely at the palms of his hands, as if waiting in morbid resignation for them to reach up to his throat and garrote him.

"Why, A-tan?" he whispered, "Why, Athena? Why would you ever say something like that? ... ... ...What did I do wrong? What did I do to make you hate me so badly...? ...I'm sorry... I'm sorry... Just tell what I must do to make it up to you...! I would do anything for you..."

Tears began to well up in his eyes.

"You were the first one... the first one to show me such unconditional kindness. ...I still remember your tender rebukes," he murmured softly, lost in bittersweet nostalgia, "I still remember how you would so playfully smack me whenever I did something stupid. You were always so gentle with me and always so... so... so... _kind_.[**2**] Those things you taught me... Everything you did for me... Even if those things were truly only done to make me suffer, because you hate me... I still cannot forget them! I... I... I... I was always loyal to you... I was a fool back then, when I betrayed your trust... But I learned... I learned from that. Even when I forgot the time between us, I was still always loyal to you... If I have ever done insult to what we had all those years ago, then I will happily accept whatever punishment you feel I deserve.

"I loved you... I loved you... You were the first person I ever loved... You were dearer to me than even my brother... I don't want what happened between us back then to be a lie...! I want to believe that you loved me too... I don't want you to hate me. So I will do whatever it takes to make you forget your hatred for me... Even if it is only by dying that I can assuage your loathing, I will still gladly do so... If the only way for you to forgive me is to take my life with your own two hands, then please, come and kill me. I know I don't deserve any love – least of all yours... But I loved you... I loved you... Even now, after hearing what you think of me, I still love you. I would do ANYTHING for you..."

He sighed, wiping away the tears. With moist eyes, he grabbed a clean change of clothes and headed over to the small, private lavatory connected to his bedroom. His gaze was downcast as he walked to the bathroom.

He opened the door.

"WoooOOOooooOOo~~~!" came a ghastly wail as a spectral decapitated head hanging from a noose fell down from the ceiling into his face. Hayate, as gloomy as he was feeling that morning, was wholly unfazed by this supernatural spectacle.

"Hello, Yūrei-san[**3**]," he glumly greeted the menacing phantom which haunted his room (not to be confused with Father Regiostar, the more or less benign spirit who haunted Hayate specifically).

"BoooOOOoo~," the spook -which Hayate had named like it were some sort of pet- replied with a moan, shifting into its preferred form of a shadowy human silhouette. "whoooosh?"

"No... No, it's not you..." Hayate said quietly, shaking his head. "It's... personal."

"Mrraahh..." 'Yūrei' groaned, its voice like wind blowing through the bare branches of a deciduous tree on a dark winter night. "WooOOOo."

Hayate smiled sadly. "Yeah... Something like that..." He sighed. "..._Nishizawa-san_..." he whispered to himself.

"oOoo~o?" Yūrei inquired, something about its presence... _changing_... and becoming more playful, mischievous.

Hayate's face grew flushed. "Wah! No!" he exclaimed, "No... I... I could never do anything so... so... _horrible_ to her...!" He sighed. "...or to anyone else..." His eyes dimmed. He whimpered. "Th-tha-that w-would... I... I... I...no... I don't deserve someone like her... someone so sweet and kind and... and... and so _normal_..."

He stepped past the ghost, moving into the bathroom and shutting the door. "I could never support her... I could never give her the life she deserves... I have nothing to my name but endless debt and a checkered past. I'd never be able to support her, financially or emotionally. She deserves someone better..."

"Spooosh hooOOOOooo~."

Hayate shook his head melancholically. "No... I'm not someone better... I... I... I'm worthless, as a man... I have no future, no past, and no present. ...I barely even exist..." He sighed again. "...such a miserable, wretched thing...such a pointless life...a man without purpose... I'm a man without a purpose. This piteous, ruinous existence... this meaningless life... Forever struggling to stay afloat in an ocean of debt, endlessly striving futilely to keep my head above the waves for just a few more seconds... I would not curse such a life as mine on even my worst enemy. I could never let myself drag someone else down into debt with me."

"Bwaah... Booo-whoooosh!"

"It does so matter!" Hayate argued. "I...I care too much for her -for them _all_- to... to ever weigh any of them down... That is all that would happen if I had a relationship with her, or anyone else."

'Yūrei' drew closer to Hayate, enveloping the lad in a cold, shadowy embrace. "hoooooOOooo..." it whispered into his ears in an almost... _comforting_... tone.

Hayate shook his head, whimpering softly as he threw his arms out before him, somehow pushing the ghost away. "No... I'm just an albatross, a burden. ...I could never give any of them the happy lives they deserve. I would only bring them misfortune and poverty."

He sighed as the specter aimlessly floated around him. "Even milady... even Nagi... even she came so close to losing everything – to losing her fortune and her inheritance. And for what? _**Me?**_" He gave a hollow laugh as he began undressing, not even noticing as 'Yūrei-san' faded away, returning to wherever it went when not haunting his room. "How foolish. That was such a rash decision for her to make. Despite knowing nothing of the situation or its circumstances, she was willing to essentially cast aside all her wealth and affluence... and all because she hated to see me so upset. Ah, how careless of milady...! To do something like that for someone like me... To throw away everything for my sake... How foolish...!"

Hayate sighed as he slipped off his sticky underwear. "Milady... What did she think she was doing...? For all she knew... for all _any of us_ knew... doing that... breaking that stone... she was putting her future on the line without a second thought...! And she did it for _me._ Why? Why did she give up everything for someone like me? Why did she do something so shortsighted as that...? Milady... despite being so brilliant, she can still be so careless...

"I'll be the first to admit that, at the time, I was just so_ shocked_ by the selflessness of that gesture that I could not begrudge her it... I could not hold it against her for doing as she had done. Not at the time. ...But now... Ah, now... looking back... I can now see -_all too clearly_- that it was nothing but recklessness on her part. She threw away her hopes and dreams, and all for someone as worthless as me... Oh, if I were to do it all over again... even knowing what I now know about that loophole... I would not so much as give her the chance to do that...! I would not go to her! It was a personal issue – my problem, not hers. She never should have been brought into the middle of things like that. It was something I should have done by myself, **without** getting any of the others tangled up in it..."

He sighed once more as he stepped over the side of the bathtub and turned on the shower faucet, making sure the water was good and cold.

"I don't deserve such kindness..." he murmured, "I don't deserve to be treated half as well as I am... Nobody else should ever have to put themselves on the line for my sake!"

He clenched his fists, his fingernails piercing the skin of his palms. The fingernails drew blood, so tightly were his hands closed upon themselves, and this blood trickled down between his fingers and past his knuckles, mingling with the innumerable rivulets of icy cold water cascading over his skin and dripping down onto the bottom of the tub. The pinkish, watery fluid-mixture pooled at his feet.

"I was a fool. I **am **a fool. It's because I let myself grow too close to her... I was too sentimental... Because I was stupid enough to trick myself into believing like a naïve child that maybe -_just maybe_- I could actually have a happy life after all, I ended up putting milady in such an awful position. Someone like her should never -could never- care for someone like me, but I let myself become so caught up in those delusions that she became convinced that I was worth her compassion..." He sighed once more. "I'm a damned fool."

Tears began falling from his eyes, plinking against the shower mat. "I lead a cursed life... I bring nothing but misfortune to the people around me. If... if... if wasn't for that debt I owed milady, I would leave and never come back." He nodded. "Yes, that would be for the best... They would be so much better off without me around to bring misery and misfortune into their lives..."

Hayate, half-unaware, felt a slight burning and tingling sensation on his neck. Absentmindedly scratching at the site of the perceived dermal irritation, he unconsciously shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Just a little too much of his mass shifted just a little too far off-center.

_doooom_

In another part of the mansion, the late Father Lynn Regiostar felt his incorporeal nose twitch at the scent of black magic.

He frowned.

"Huhn... Something smells like bad spirits..." Lynn muttered.

_doooom_

Hayate slipped, his feet losing traction on the slick shower mat. He felt himself fall forward. _'It would be so easy...'_ he told himself, _'They wouldn't even miss me – not for long, at any rate...'_

_doooom_

He was completely relaxed as he listed forwards, his feet slipping backwards. His expression was almost serene as his forehead sharply struck the bath faucet, the bone of his skull cracking from the force of impact.

_doooom_

His heart was at ease as he collapsed onto the bottom of the bathtub. His mouth was wide open as his neck twisted violently with a loud SNAP. His consciousness was fading as blood began seeping from his head wound.

_doooom_

His pulse went still as water, spraying forth from the shower nozzle, poured into his mouth, gradually flooding his lungs.

_DOOOOM_

* * *

It was quarter to six, _ante meridiem_, as reckoned in accordance with and according to _Nihon Hyōjunji_ (Japan Standard Time). In the "Love Nest" (a love hotel-themed room in Nagi's mansion) were six sleeping girls. Three of them -the youngest three- were lying on a heart-shaped, rotating water bed. Two of them -a few years older than the youngest three- were lying, huddled together, on a portable futon. And one of them -the oldest one by far, being several years older than even the two- was sprawled across a small leather couch and drooling in her sleep.

All six of these girls were sleeping off a most rowdy slumber party.

In another part of the mansion, three more girls -all of them around the same age as the two among the six- were lying, half-naked, in a dog-pile. These three were surrounded by adult magazines and junk food wrappers.

Outside, the sun was gradually ascending the heavens, illuminating the land of its rising. The last hints of the sanguine hues of dawn were receding as they gave way to a clear summer cerulean. The sky was a summer sky, though it was not quite that time of year yet. With the procession of seasons through their cycles as spring drew nearer to becoming summer, the appearance of this kind of weather was slowly growing more and more frequent.

The star of Sol -the nearest star to Earth, and the most visible one in the sky- seemed particularly luminescent this fine morning. The sun was a bright golden-white, and its rays brought much warmth to the world. Indeed, the sheer perfection and beauty of the weather on that day made it seem as though Nature herself was mocking -_taunting_- those students who had to go to school and spend the best hours of the day cooped up in their classrooms – much to the chagrin of schoolchildren all across Japan.

But the aforementioned six girls in the "Love Nest", being in a room with no natural light (an unfortunate concession to the necessity of privacy for those who would make use of that particular chamber), were not themselves directly privy to the cruel, spiteful taunts of that fusion-reactive mass of hydrogen and other assorted elements. No, from their location, those six could not see the sun or its light. The warm rays of morning could not reach them, and the sun's light could not awaken them. Not where they were.

But, for at least one of them, that was unnecessary. At least one of them had no need to feel the sun on her face in order to awaken from her sleep. Not when she had such a disciplined and accurate internal clock.

Hinagiku yawned. As her body quivered, wracked with the battles of the temporarily conflicting impulses of 'sleeping' and 'awakening', she _streeeeeeeetched_ her arms. She extended them as far as they would go, arching her back and hearing her shoulders go POP. Smoothly transitioning from REM to active consciousness, young Miss Katsura gradually came to over the course of a few minutes.

Smacking her dry lips, Hinagiku sleepily contemplated the curious, almost unsettling, shift from dreams to reality. In particular, she thought about the dream she had just awaken from: a most... _interesting_... night-time fantasy starring herself, her big sister, Nishizawa, and a large number of highly unpleasant-looking instruments. Feeling the slight, embarrassing dampness between her legs, she frowned. _'A wet dream...? And during a sleepover, no less... Jeez, talk about awkward...'_

She sat up, lazily brushing aside the luxuriant, silky tresses of long, pink hair that were hanging down in front of her face. Rubbing the crusty, gooey remnants of the night's sleep from her eyes, she yawned again. It was softer this time, however, and less urgent-feeling than the first one.

Then she sharply tilted her head sideways -first to the left, then to the right- with a CRACK. Reaching up and around to the base of her skull at the back of her head, she began roughly kneading the neck muscles there with her fingers to promote spinal blood flow and remove any knots that might have formed as she had slept. It was a trick she had picked up from her older sister, who had herself picked it up during her time living on the mean streets while caring for an infant Hinagiku, back when such things as pillows -or even a proper bed- were an unaffordable luxury for them and kinks in one's spine were thus liable to form quite literally overnight.

Hinagiku Katsura, now more or less fully conscious, cast a glance to her side, where laid her friend and ally in love, Ayumu Nishizawa. Seeing how adorably innocent the girl looked in her sleep, Hinagiku smiled softly. _'D'aawww...'_

Then, as she was cooing internally over how CUTE her friend looked, Hinagiku absentmindedly noticed that she could feel a pair of legs entangled with her own. Moving her gaze further down, she saw that Nishizawa had apparently gotten a little touchy-feely in her sleep last night. Their legs were intertwined, and Ayumu had her arms wrapped -rather tightly- around her friend's waist. Upon closer inspection, Hinagiku now noticed that the other girl's cute (almost _childish_) blue-fleece banana-print pajamas were immensely disheveled – Hell, the pink-haired _pettanko_ was fairly certain she even glimpsed a nipple briefly peeking out from amidst carelessly undone buttons. In addition, Ayumu's cheeks were flushed a faint pink, and her lips appeared to be moving unconsciously in somniloquence...

"C'mon... _snrrr_... Hina... tan... _hngk_... 'll only... 'urt... _snerk_... a sec... ond... mergle..." the girl drawled in her sleep.

Hinagiku let out a squeak as she felt Ayumu's hands start wandering downwards – one from behind, the other from in front. Then they **squeezed**, and she yelped, jumping up with a start from where she was sitting. This action, in turn, sent Ayumu rolling off the futon, the motion causing her to get wrapped up in the blankets like a cotton-polyester blend cocoon.

Hinagiku blushed bright crimson as, at those words and those actions, her mind was suddenly inundated with a mental cacophony of confused and fragmented recollections – memories of what, she found herself hoping, was only a dream and nothing more.

_Ayumu grinned lecherously. She was leering drunkenly at her friend. Next to her was Yukiji. Both of them were wearing a bright blush, and little else. _

_ Hinagiku, feeling an ill-boding premonition, looked down. With mounting dread (and maybe just a __**slight **__hint of arousal), she found that she, herself, was... well, maybe not _naked_, per se, since she __was__ technically wearing clothes, if "clothes" they could be truly called. On the one hand, they WERE made of some sort of fabric (possibly silk, from the feel of them) and worn upon her body after the manner of clothing. But on the other hand, they covered NOTHING __of what __should__ be covered by clothes, and the material from which they were fashioned was all but completely transparent._

_ Then Hinagiku looked up, and she beheld -with warring feelings of horror and excitement- that Ayumu and Yukiji held in their hands a matching set of imposing, undeniably phallic implements. Implements which they were pointing towards HER._

_ Hinagiku whimpered, uncertain as to why some part of her was feeling so... _eager_... at the sight of those objects in the other two girls' hands. _

_ Ayumu smiled mischievously. "C'mon, Hina-tan~!" she sang, "Don't be such a scaredy cat. It'll only hurt for a second or two! Besides, _Hayate's_ is supposed to be even bigger..."_

Hinagiku shivered. _'Yes...'_ she thought, pointedly ignoring the slight, ambiguous soreness that she was feeling down in her southern real estates. _'It was only a dream. It was just a dream – a dream is all it was. It was only a dream and __**NOTHING MORE**__.' _

At that moment, Ayumu stirred with a stifled yawn as she clumsily and drowsily attempted to extricate herself from her blanket cocoon. It was, by all appearances, not an easy task. But, eventually, after much writhing and squirming and moaning and grunting, she managed to escape from that fabric prison.

Rather violently casting aside the offending covers, Ayumu rolled over onto her belly and pushed herself up off the floor with her arms. Sure, she could have simply sat up, but that would not have been nearly as "fun".

She stood up, her bare feet sinking into the fibrous forest that was the shag carpeting. Arching her back (which was to Hinagiku), she stretched languidly and yawned once more. This motion caused her pajama bottoms -which had already been riding dangerously low on her hips- to drop down onto the floor. This, in turn, exposed the girl's plain white cotton panties.

Hinagiku, looking at her friend's underwear[**4**], noticed that this particular article of clothing was, well... It did not look like they could have been very comfortable, considering how the fabric was sort of bunched up and wedged right in between Ayumu's lower cheeks... her soft, round, creamy white cheeks... Unbidden, an image of those panties similarly riding up on Nishizawa-san in the front suddenly made itself manifest in Hinagiku's mind.

Blushing and covertly wiping away a slight trail of drool from her lips, the pinkette quickly and decisively banished that traitorous thought and all others like it to the deepest depths of her subconscious. She most certainly was not attracted to Nishizawa. No siree, she was straight as an arrow, and her relationship with Ayumu Nishizawa was purely platonic. She most certainly did not have any repressed bisexual tendencies, and she was deeply offended that the reader would even THINK to ever interpret things otherwise.

"Heee~eey, Hinaemon~!" Ayumu chirped drowsily, interrupting the thoughts of her friend who was currently swimming in the Nile. She flashed a broad smile at Hinagiku. "What'cha doin'~?"

Hinagiku sweat-dropped nervously. "Well... I'm **NOT** repressing erotic thoughts about you," she replied, lying with zero subtlety to _all_ present, "that's for sure."

Ayumu, her brain still partly in hibernation, was surprisingly unable to discern the insincerity in that statement. So she took it at face value. This, of course, helped matters little, because even with the portions of her brain dedicated to higher level reasoning still inactive it was apparent to her that there was something off about her friend's statement. But she was not awake enough to figure out _what_. So she simply stared at Hinagiku blankly. After a minute or so of doing this, she at last said, "Oh... 'kay."

_'Yes!'_ Hinagiku though victoriously, _'She bought it! She doesn't suspect a thing!'_

Ayumu yawned. _'How much wood _would_ a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood...?'_ she wondered intelligently with a slightly vapid, zoned out expression on her face.

_'Yup!'_ Hinagiku smirked smugly. _'I'm totally a BRILLIANT actor. I don't care what anyone else says: I could SO become an actress if I wanted!'_

[Narrio Wakamator: "And so, it is evident that not even a student council president is immune to delusions of stardom. Although with such a formidable 'talent' as hers, perhaps she SHOULD be."]

Hinagiku growled. "Shut it, smartass."

Nishizawa was not privy to the proceeding argument between her friend and the narrator – she was too busy puzzling over certain things to bother herself with something like that. Yes, she was pondering many things. Things like the events of the night previous.

_'Maaa~~~~an... That was one helluva crazy night. I mean, who knew that Hina could be such a party animal? Or that Isumi-chan was such a closet perv? ... And Hina was TOTALLY right about Yukiji being the touchy-feely sort of drunk... So grabby...'_

Ayumu blushed. _'But at least Hina will always be there for me, even if I __do__ end up unmarriageable... And it still felt really good,'_ she thought guiltily.

_ 'Ah, if Hayate-kun is even half as good with his hands as Yuki-chan...'_ She squee'd at that thought. _'Oooh...! He'd probably be able to win a girl's undying, unconditional love with just a single massage, if that were the case! ... And, somehow, I get the feeling that he's even __**better**__ than Yuki-chan... Glee~! Ohhhh...! Even if he doesn't know anything about pleasing a lady in _that_ way YET, with hands like that and a little bit of hands-on training from me and Hina, he'll be like a god of sex in no time at all! ... well, once we can get him to accept our love, at any rate...'_

She frowned. _'In fact... I'm pretty sure that Hina hasn't even gotten around to confessing to him, yet... Well, then! I'll just have to remedy that as soon as possible!'_

Out loud she said, "C'mon, Hina! We're going to the kitchen!" She grabbed the hand of the girl in question, interrupting an almost _eloquent_ defense of her "talent" as an actor.

Hinagiku blinked. "Eh...? The kitchen...? What for?"

Ayumu simply smiled at her and said, "For LOVE! And maybe even MARRIAGE! And BABIES, too, if we're lucky!-!"

Hinagiku sweat-dropped. _'Love, marriage, and babies...? ... Oh... oh God... please... please don't tell me she has another "plan"...! That last one nearly lost us Hayate's virginity!'_

Seeing the concerned look on her friend's face, Ayumu reassuringly exclaimed: "Don't worry! I've got a plan!"

That did nothing to alleviate Hinagiku's fears.

* * *

Somewhere in downtown Detroit, Michigan was located the Midwest USA headquarters of G.R.E. Co. International (the Geological Resource Excavation Company). Despite being at the heart of the Midwest American copper and iron mining industries, it was a surprisingly unassuming building – a simple, blocky edifice of gray steel and concrete that was no more than four stories tall. There were no markings or brandings upon this structure to identify it, and most who passed it by paid it no heed. It was not located in the worst part of town, perhaps, but it was far from being in the best part either. All in all, it was utterly unremarkable, and nobody who was not in the know would have have ever thought it to house the office of one of the most influential men alive.

But it did.

On the fourth floor, overlooking the mean streets of Detroit through small, grimy windows, the office of Eugene Smith, president and founder of G.R.E. Co. International, was the musty, dimly lit nightmare of claustrophobes everywhere. The fluorescent lights (half of which were completely burnt out or otherwise defective) flickered on and off intermittently. There was a withered, malnourished ficus plant in one corner, and a shoddy, DIY-looking coat-rack in another. The floor was carpeted in some cheap, allergen-collecting material.

There was one small desk – on it were three bulky, outdated computer monitors, each of which were connected to a different, equally outdated tower beneath the desk. For each computer there was also a mouse and keyboard, though they were crammed rather tightly together. Between all that and a single solitary picture of a grim-faced young man with a pallid, alabaster complexion, close-shorn, jet black hair, and bright red eyes, there was no room on the desktop for any papers.

But that was fine with Eugene. He did not need the physical forms in order to fill out paperwork – that was what the computers were for. ...Well, that and looking at porn. But the latter was self-evident, so it scarcely needed to be mentioned aloud.

Anyways, sitting behind the desk in a barely ergonomic office chair was the man of the hour himself: Eugene Smith, the enigmatic, reclusive president of G.R.E. Co. International. He was a tall, gangly fellow with bleached-white skin and high, prominent cheek bones. He was gaunt, like he had not eaten in an age, and his eyes were a dull, lifeless gray. His hair was thinning and white, and he was clean-shaven. He was dressed in a grungy, blackish business suit which, while not in a noticeably poor condition, seemed somehow... worn out... rather like it had seen too many years of use despite being kept in fine condition. He was poring over complex digital charts on his computer – graphs that, to almost anyone else, would have been completely indecipherable.

The office was filled with a steady symphony of _klik_s and _klak_s as his long, bony fingers deftly danced across three separate keyboards, simultaneously performing multiple operations on three different computers like it was just no thing. His hands were like those of a master pianist, blurring fluidly in a sublime concert of motion.

There was a knock on the door. It was like a thunderclap disrupting the dull, monotonous peace within the cramped office.

Almost lazily, Mister Smith turned the gaze of his eyes towards the source of the noise. "Come in," he said, his voice sounding somehow harsh yet melodious.

The door creaked open, and an unremarkable face topped by a mop of dirty-blonde hair poked through. "Excuse me, sir," said the Interrupter, sounding quite frightened to be speaking with him, "There's a call for you on line one."

Eugene cocked an eyebrow. "Oh? Well I don't have any time for them."

"But, sir—!"

"—Whoever is calling, I can assure you: _they are unimportant._"

The young man looked nervous. "Ah..." he muttered hesitantly. "'Erm, he... uh, well..."

"Spit it out and be done with it," Eugene said in a deceptively calm voice which belied a very real threat.

The young intern gulped. "He said that if you said something like that to tell you: _'Hello, Hades, king of dirt and dust; hello, Tennōs, emperor of empty skies.'_ He said you would know what it means..." the intern trailed off worriedly. He was shivering and trembling and quaking and shaking.

Eugene frowned. "Is that so...?" He looked the intern in the eye, causing the young man to piss himself.

Nervously, hesitantly, the young man nodded.

Eugene sighed and snapped his fingers. The intern dropped to the floor, dead. "Impudent rat..." Mister Smith growled even as he personally wired the caller through and pressed a button to summon a janitor to deal with the body. He picked up a phone. "What business have you, calling me directly?" he rumbled darkly. "Have you forgotten the arrangement?"

The voice on the other end of the line laughed. _"The deal's off, Hades. I've found gainful employment elsewhere. You can't touch me, now."_

'Hades' glowered at the center-most monitor in front of him. "Arthur," he muttered neutrally.

_"Tch. Don't think you can get a rise out of me so easily, any more,"_ replied 'Arthur'. _"I'm not nearly as hotheaded now as I was back then."_

"Odd..." the man named for the Greek god of the underworld mused. "That is most definitely not what I heard from Brother Ares..."

The voice on the other end was silent for a moment. _"... ... ... ... yeah, well he can just go right to Hell."_

Hades smirked. "Yes, it has been a while since my dear brother last paid me a visit, hasn't it?"

_"Oh, fuck you," _groused Arthur.

Hades chuckled. "Ah, but considering your history and your condition, would it not rather be the other way around?"

_"Piss off, old man!"_ Arthur snarled.

"Now, now," Mister Smith chided good-naturedly, "You cannot go around blaming others for your own youthful indiscretions. From what I understand, after all, you are lucky to still have both of your legs. I'd say being a eunuch is a small price to pay for that..."

_"Get bent,"_ Arthur spat.

As if to punctuate this final jab, the earpiece of Eugene's phone spat acrid black smoke and then died on the spot.

The president and founder of G.R.E. Co., Eugene "Hades Tennōs" Smith, pulled the phone away from his ear. Turning it over in his hand, he inspected the damage.

It was fried beyond repair.

He smiled.

"The tech-bane strikes again..." he chuckled.

Then his expression darkened.

"Hmph... The impudence of that child... Does he think us blind?"

He shook his head, typing a command into the left computer and bringing up grainy, black and white surveillance footage. It showed a rare white tiger mauling a certain unfortunate hit man. He typed in another command, and this time it showed the same assassin getting his ass handed to him by a young man with light blue hair.

He smiled again, but this time it was decidedly sinister.

"Haha... But you have served your purpose well, Dire Rat, so I shall forgive you this insolence. After all, you have led us to _him_." His eyes twinkled darkly. "Our plans our nearing fruition... Soon, Athena, you shall fulfill your purpose and redeem your betrayal. Through 'Complementation', we will take back our rightful place... We will have our vengeance soon enough.

"So enjoy your freedom while it lasts, O slave of Death. You will return to us soon enough, one way or another... And with you, the King, as well."

* * *

[Narrio Wakamator: "Meanwhile, somewhere on the Pacific."]

* * *

Dire Rat, sitting in the middle of a makeshift raft of several wooden crates roped together with a heavy canvass tarp set up on four short poles as his only shelter, stared at the exploded remains of his burn phone. His right eyebrow was twitching. "_Oh, Goddammit,_" he swore in English. "_I hate when that happens._"

Under the shadow of the tarp, shadows coalesced into a human form the size of a ten year old boy. It was garbed in a ratty brown hooded tunic. Nothing could be seen of its face under the hood save for two eyes, lamp-like and round.

Dire Rat glanced toward the figure.

"... It happened again, master-nin?" it said in an archaic dialect of Japanese.

The assassin simply nodded his head with a sigh.

"... Should I arrange for spectral projection-nin?" it asked dutifully, bowing its head in deference.

Dire Rat shook his head. "No..." he started to say, only for a light bulb to go off in his head. "... Actually, yes. Arrange to project to the sentry I stationed at that mansion yesterday."

The... thing... nodded, though it was barely noticeable beneath the hood. "Certainly-nin. Is there anyone in particular you wish to contact-nin?"

"No, not really. But if I keep all my attention here, I'm bound to go mad from boredom."

"Very well-nin. It might take a few hours to set up, though... nin."

Dire Rat shrugged. "That's fine with me. I've got nothing better to do. ... heck, even that madhouse will be better than _this_..." he muttered to himself.

"What was that-nin?"

"Nothing, nothing."

* * *

[Narrio Wakamator: "And back at the mansion..."

* * *

In the mansion's kitchen... Er, well... at least... in ONE of the mansion's kitchens... Yeah, in one of the mansion's kitchens, a drowsy-looking Maria was standing over a stove. On the foremost, right hand burner was a large, cast iron frying pan, within which was sizzling a breakfast medley of various meats and vegetables. The smell of summer sausage closely intermingled with that of maple syrup, wafting on the air along with the tantalizing aroma of rice and peppers. It was the scent of breakfast being prepared.

Hisssssssss-_POP_ went the sausage as it cooked. Sizzlesnap-crackle went the peppers and rice as they simmered. "Yawn~~~!" went Maria as she kept an eye on the food, _creak-sliiiiide_ went the kitchen door as it opened, and GRUMBLYRUMBLY went the stomachs of Ayumu and Hinagiku as they stepped into the room and walked face first into a wave of hot, delectably-scented air. [**5**]

"Haa~ahn..." Ayumu moaned, drooling at the smell of the delicious vittles being whipped up by Nagi's maid. "Smells so gooood..."

Like a zombie, with eyes closed, mouth hanging open, and arms held out before her, Ayumu shuffled over to behind Maria, who was largely oblivious as she yawned and stretched in her hastily-thrown-on-yet-not-the-least-bit-disheveled uniform.

The maid was really regretting staying out as long as she had. It did not help that, originally, when she finally had returned to the mansion at three o'clock in the morning, she had in fact been planning to simply sleep in an hour or so and let Hayate pick up her slack. But she had had trouble falling asleep, and when she had gotten up at about half past five to get herself a glass of water, she had noticed that there was no sign of Hayate. This had confused her, as Ayasaki was usually up and about by then, so she had gone to his room and knocked on his door.

There had been no response, save for the faint sound of running water.

So here she was, running on empty -or very nearly so- and cooking breakfast for at least eight people (with enough extra to serve maybe three or four more, as was only prudent when cooking for a group).

"Ngaaah..." Ayumu warbled hungrily, resting her drool-dripping chin on Maria's shoulder. This, of course, freaked the sleepy maid in question right the fuck out.

"KYAAAAH!-!"

THWACKCRACK. THUMPCRASH.

Suddenly on high alert with adrenaline coursing through her system, putting her body into its fight or flight (or excite) mode, Maria did what only seemed logical to her insomnia-addled brain at the time – namely, spinning around to deliver a brutal uppercut to the chin of her unexpected visitor.

Ayumu's head snapped back even as the kinetic force from that punishing blow sent her flying in a roughly parabolic arc. At the height of her trajectory, she reached an altitude of three feet (or nearly a meter) off the floor. As for horizontal distance, she managed to reach ten feet (approximately three meters) before touching down on the floor.

She landed on her ass with a pained yelp, skidding a few inches further before coming to a stop at Hinagiku's feet. She grimaced, at first. But then she looked up, and a sly grin quickly found its way onto her face.

"Heheheheh~" the bluenette snickered, still seated on the floor as she looked up her friend's skirt. "_I see London~, I see France~—_" she began singing, only to be stopped by a vengeful fist to the top of her head. She crumpled to the floor, the newly formed lump on her head still smoking from the force of impact.

* * *

_Omake: Why it Took Me so Long to Update (But Not Really)  
_

Hayate, dressed in nothing save for a monogrammed white bathrobe that was open at the chest to bare smooth and well-defined pectorals, frowned as he read his script. "Okay, I just don't get it..." he said, shaking his head. "_What_ do you want me to do for this scene?"

The director -a shortish, bespectacled fellow with short, dark brown hair, a small mustache, and a scraggly unshaven chin- sighed. "For the third time, Hayate, I want you to call on the sadness in your soul and let yourself drown in despair and self loathing! This scene is all about you reflecting on how insignificant you feel, and how unworthy of love you believe yourself!-!" he exclaimed passionately.

Hayate stared at the director. "... ... ... Yeeeaaah, I'm just not _feeling_ it."

The director threw up his hands in frustration. "Augh! You are impossible to work with! Can't you even be a _little_ bit angsty?-!"

Hayate shook his head. "Nope, not unless A-tan is involved."

"What kind of bullshit stipulation is THAT?-!"

Hayate flipped the script back a dozen or so pages. "_'Certainly, given the manga's track record of generally trivializing Hayate's non-Athena-related woes outside of exceptionally dramatic points..._'" he read.

"Oy!" the director growled, "Where the hell is _that_ written?-!"

"Author's note before the start of the previous chapter," Hayate answered simply.

Fumi, dressed in a maid outfit and carrying a tray of drinks, walked up to the two. "Which of you wanted the Long Island Tea!-?" she shouted exuberantly.

"Ah, that'd be me," Hayate said with a smile. He took the proffered drink. "And here's a tip, for the lovely young lady..."

He then grabbed Fumi's free hand and bent over, planting a kiss on the back on the back of her be-gloved hand.

"Alright!" Fumi exclaimed, pumping her fist into the air. "This glove'll sell for a fortune on eBay!" she declared. "Shows what _you_ know, Sharna-chan! I'm TOTALLY a **_helluva maid!-!_**"

"Indeed," Hayate said with a chuckle, playfully patting Fumi on the bum as she exited stage right.

"Oy vey..." the director grumbled with a long-suffering sigh, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. "_Actors_."

[**6**]

* * *

[**1**]: The unit of money used for this is the Geary-Khamis (or international) dollar. Due to the confusing mess that is Purchasing Power Parity, I'm not even going to try and figure out what, exactly, that comes out to in comparison to what I've determined as being the approximate amount of money Hayate's earns towards paying off his debt annually.

[**2**]: If you can discern the Fridge Horror contained in these remarks, then congratulations! I have now horrifically tainted your perceptions of what Hayate's childhood must have been like! Hope you enjoy~!

[**3**]: _Y__ū__rei_ (幽霊 - faint spirit), in Japanese mythology, are the spirits of the deceased – i.e., ghosts. This is the same ghost as the one that haunted Hayate's room in the mansion. I don't honestly quite remember, but I'm pretty sure nothing ever happened with that ghost... It's been a while since I've read anything in the manga before, like, chapter 280, though, so I could simply not be remembering...

[**4**]: The reason for this, as Hinagiku would tell it, was that she was simply surprised by Ayumu's pajama bottoms falling down. ...But is that the truth?

Maybe.

[**5**]: I dunno when or how, but somewhere along the line of writing this fic, I've come to ADORE onomatopoeia as a literary device, and you can just _tell_ that I had a gay old time and really went all out with 'em in this paragraph. Of the various ones in the paragraph, 'Hisssssssss-_POP_' was easily my favorite, with '_creak-sliiiiide_' coming in at a distant second.

[**6**]: Actors, indeed.

Hehe, I dunno why I decided to characterize actor!Hayate like I did, except that it's such a complete contrast with his normal character that I just HAD to do it. The fic was all, like: _"C'mon, maaan, you know you wanna..."_ And also because this fic is too damn irreverent and self-referential to let that sort of overwrought, self-serious melodrama slide without a good spoofing. Which is the sort of thing omake exist for.

* * *

**A/N: Man, I had **_**not**_** originally intended for Hayate's self-pity party to take up as much of the chapter as it did, but it kept getting longer and longer until it was nearly I-don't-even-**_**know**_**-how-many words long. **

**I'm just obsessed with the idea that Hayate is actually a serious Stepford Smiler who is so completely fucked up in the head that he is utterly incapable of believing that anything good could ever happen to him without there being something a hundred times worse right around the corner. And while I've hinted at such things in earlier chapters (even as far back as the second scene in chapter two, **_**This Is the Beginning of Not a Friendship, But a Rivalry!**_**, with his and Maria's short discussion about superstitions), this chapter really pulls out all the stops in showing off JUST how psychologically messed up Hayate (as interpreted by **_**moi**_**) ****is****. But don't worry. He might be bad NOW, but he **_**will**_** get better... eventually. Until then, though, expect me to milk him for damn near every drop of angst I can get – and considering how much of a Cosmic Plaything he is, that's A LOT of fucking angst.**

**I figure I might as well do it now, though, before extracting angst from Hayate's shitty childhood becomes passé. And, as in the start of the chapter, it all comes back to what **_**horrible**_** parents he had. Seriously, in comparison with Shun Ayasaki and [Jane Doe], the likes of Genma Saotome [**_**Ranma 1/2**_**] and Gendo Ikari [**_**Neon Genesis Evangelion**_**] are goddamn "Father of the Year" material. And that is REALLY saying something about how utterly irresponsible Shun and his wife are/were. And let's not forget about Ikusa, who actually LEFT HIS LITTLE BROTHER IN THE CARE OF TWO OF THE WORST PARENTS IN EXISTENCE. Christ. **_**Nothing **_**Yukiji Katsura has ****ever**** done could be ****ever**** be considered even **_**remotely**_** irresponsible in comparison to THAT. Seriously, I don't care if Ikusa was on the run from the Yakuza or the Illuminati or fuckin' lizardmen from Mars – there is ****no way**** that his abandoning Hayate could **_**possibly**_** be justified without turning most of the widely accepted perceptions of Hayate's early childhood completely on their heads. **

**I've got my eye on you, Ikusa...**

**Also, if it seems like I gave up on smoothing out this chapter at some point, that's because I _did_. I dunno, but after a month of working on it, I guess I'm just sick of seeing it sitting there unfinished, _mocking me_. So I cut off a part of what was at the end of the unfinished chapter to put in the next chapter, slapped in some obligatory Plot and Dire Rat nonsense, gave it a quick once over to remove any editorial annotations (i.e., things like _[sic?]'s_ where I'm not sure if I spelled a word properly but don't feel like checking right away, and _[source?]_'s where I'm not certain on the accuracy or veracity of a certain statement or factoid or detail or what-not) and correct any obvious typos, added this to the author's note, and called it a day. As a result, this chapter is rather rough. But hopefully you guys will be able to enjoy reading it anyways.**

**... ... ... I'm honestly still a bit apprehensive about some of the dialogue in the opening dream sequence... but oh well...**

**First impressions of chapter 343 (because even if no one else likes this special feature, _I_ enjoy doing it, so _there_).**

**.**

**Before  
**

**Time - 11/7/2011, Monday, 3:46 P.M., Central Time. **

**Note: Well, this chapter looks to be starting where the previous one left off. And the girl (whom I still believe is/will become the newest haremette), is apparently confirmed to be homeless. And we still don't know her name... unless it's Tsugurino Kayura, like it says in the chapter title. **

**Well, guess I'll just have to read and find out. I don't have any predictions for this chapter, so I suppose I might as well just start reading.  
**

**.**

**After  
**

**Time 10/20/2011, Thursday - 3:59 P.M., Central Time. **

**Note: Welp, we (read: I) now have confirmation on her name as being Kayura (given) and Tsugurino (family), and she's now a tenant at the apartment. Here's holding out hope that she becomes the next haremette (though I'll admit that at the moment it seems rather unlikely). Though that line about her having read a hundred thousand manga over her thirteen years of life brings to mind the trope Writers Suck at Math (may not actually be what trope is called, can't quite remember). **

**Also, apparently Hayate is used to getting arrested for being homeless. I think two things when I read that: 1) More fuel for angst! 2) Is that actually a real thing in Japan, that you can get arrested simply for being homeless? (though knowing how oblivious I am to basically everything, that could very well be the case over here in America, as well, and I just don't know about it) Because that seems like a bit of a dick move... though I suppose that the local prison would at least have a roof and three square meals a day. *Shrug***

**.  
**

**Lastly, stats prior to updating:**

_Hayate the Combat Butler - Rated: M - English - Humor/Adventure - Chapters: 16 - Words: 107,502 - Reviews: 38 - Updated: 10-2-11 - Published: 2-27-10 - Ayumu & Hayate_

**And additionally:**

_Hits: 8,662  
_

_Favorites: 26_

_Alerts: 31_

_C2s: 2  
_

**Chapter Added: **_11-7-11 [November 7, 2011]_


	18. I Abhor Writer's Block Also, Merry Xmas

**Merry Christmas, everybody! It's**

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A _Hayate the Combat Butler _fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: I AM SO SORRY. PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR BEING SO DAMN LATE IN UPDATING!**

** Also, wow, the OST for the _Fairy Tail_ anime (which I've only just started watching) is really quite nice.  
**

**WARNING: None I can think of, though I feel that I should point out that the length of this is nowhere near that of the more recent chapters, just to get that disappointment out of the way.**

* * *

**Last time on 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

* * *

_ "Ngaaah..." Ayumu warbled hungrily, resting her drool-dripping chin on Maria's shoulder. This, of course, freaked the sleepy maid in question right the fuck out._

_ "KYAAAAH!-!"_

_ THWACKCRACK. THUMPCRASH._

_ Suddenly on high alert with adrenaline coursing through her system, putting her body into its fight or flight (or excite) mode, Maria did what only seemed logical to her insomnia-addled brain at the time – namely, spinning around to deliver a brutal uppercut to the chin of her unexpected visitor._

_ Ayumu's head snapped back even as the kinetic force from that punishing blow sent her flying in a roughly parabolic arc. At the height of her trajectory, she reached an altitude of three feet (or nearly a meter) off the floor. As for horizontal distance, she managed to reach ten feet (approximately three meters) before touching down on the floor._

_ She landed on her ass with a pained yelp, skidding a few inches further before coming to a stop at Hinagiku's feet. She grimaced, at first. But then she looked up, and a sly grin quickly found its way onto her face._

_ "Heheheheh~" the bluenette snickered, still seated on the floor as she looked up her friend's skirt. _"I see London~, I see France~—" _she began singing, only to be stopped by a vengeful fist to the top of her head. She crumpled to the floor, the newly formed lump on her head still smoking from the force of impact._

* * *

**Now, for the next installment of 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

.

.

.

**Chapter Fifteen:**

**I Abhor Writer's Block, Because When I Sit Down to Write the Next Chapter, I Can't**

"Shut it," Hinagiku growled, temples throbbing and fist clenched. "There's not even anything to see – I'm wearing _spats_, for Pete's sake...!" she practically snarled. She was seething, having little to no patience at the moment for her companion's constant, playfully licentious remarks.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow... owowowowow... ... ..." Ayumu whimpered, rubbing her head. "...Gaahhhh... ya dun' hafta be so MEAN about it, Hina-tan..." she muttered with a childish pout.

"And you don't have to pretend to be such a pervert all the time!" Hinagiku snapped in response, bags evident under her eyes.

"Mahhh, mahhh..." Ayumu muttered, waving a hand dismissively and crinkling her twinkling eyes with a cheerful smile. "But who says I'm acting?"

Hinagiku scratched the back of her neck, looking uncharacteristically sheepish. "... Ahh, yes... Who indeed, who indeed...?" She paused a moment. "Ehehe..." she chuckled nervously, "Well, mostly just me, I suppose," she confessed at last. "But, still... I just can't imagine that you're really _that much_ of a pervert."

"Meh," Ayumu shrugged, "Mabe I am, maybe I'm not. It all depends on what you consider 'perverted', I suppose... But the way I act... that only comes naturally, to me."

"Tch... 'Naturally _perverted_', maybe," Hinagiku muttered snidely.

Ayumu sweat-dropped. "Neh, neh, Hina-tan, why you gotta be so cold? Can a sister really help it if she likes it a little both ways?"

"Maybe not," conceded the pinkette, "But you are neither an urban black nor a nun."

Ayumu shrugged again. "Does that really change my point, though?"

Hinagiku was silent for a minute before responding. "... Perhaps," she said simply.

"Oy, oy!" Ayumu exclaimed, temples throbbing. "You take that long to answer, and all you give me is 'perhaps'? What the heck kinda response is that!-?"

"A legitimate one."

"Legitimate my _butt!_" Ayumu sniped back.

"Tch, whatever," Hinagiku snorted, clearly tired of this pointless argument already.

"Nyaah, that's not very nice, Hina! She _does_ has a very nice butt, after all!"

Hinagiku blinked. "... eh? The heck does _that_ have to do with _anything?_"

"Everything!"

Hinagiku sighed, rubbing her temples to stave off the coming headache. "Oyyy, Izumi..."

Blink.

Wait.

Waitwaitwait.

_ Izumi?_

"Ehhhh?-! Izumi?-!" Hinagiku exclaimed in shock, pointing at the girl in question who was standing in the doorway, dressed in some very cute (and _very_ disheveled) footie-pajamas. "What are **you** doing here?-!"

"Getting breakfast for me, Miki, and Risa," the girl answered cheerfully, oblivious to Hinagiku obvious confusion.

The student council president shook her head and gesticulated wildly. "No, not like that!" she said, "I mean... that is to say... what are you doing HERE, at Nagi's place?-!"

Izumi giggled. "We're just doing our job~" she answered cheerfully.

Hinagiku stared at her. "... your job...?" she parroted uncertainly.

"Yeah, you know, our _'job'_," Izumi said, using air-quotes for the word 'job'.

Hinagiku's eyes widened. "Oh!" she muttered, closing her eyes and slowly nodding. "I see... Your _'job'_..." She reopened her eyes and fixed Miss Segawa with a rather penetrating look. "Yeah, _about that_..." she trailed off meaningfully.

Izumi sweat-dropped and took a step backwards from Hinagiku, feeling an uneasy premonition in her gut. She gulped nervously as Hinagiku continued to _look _at her, letting the silence hang over their heads like a looming storm cloud.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"... WAH!" Izumi yelped, unable to handle the tension any longer. "I'm so sorry it wasn't my idea it was totally all Miki-chan and Risa-chin[source?] and they made me do it and I didn't want to but I had to and they made me do it and Miki's amateur porn (starring Hayata-kun) and Kotetsu's make-out session (with Hayata-kun) and Risa's almost-sex (with Hayata-kun) and Miki's handjob (for Hayate-kun) and none of it was my idea and they made me do it and oh God oh God please don't execute me I didn't know what I was doing I'm so sorry I'm so sorry just please forgive me!-!-!" she blurted out.

"... ... ..." Hinagiku stared at her in disbelief and maybe even a little bit of what looked like embarrassment.

"... ... ..." Nishizawa stared at her in disappointment and maybe even a little bit of what looked like jealousy.

"... ... ... ... ...?" And Maria stared at the other three in obvious confusion. _'What... Why does it feel like I missed something big...? Did... did Nagi have some sort of orgy behind my back...?'_

[Narrio Wakamator: *Text box with an arrow pointing at Maria* _'Was not present for the events of the last few chapters – Just in case you forgot.'_]

"... errr, oops," Izumi murmured awkwardly. "I probably shouldn't have said that, huh?"

"No," Hinagiku growled, "you're wrong; rather, you shouldn't have _done_ that. _**Period.**_"

"Meep!"

...

[Narrio Wakamator: "Meanwhile, on a makeshift raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean..."]

...

Dire Rat, sitting seiza style on one side of a highly intricate looking array of glowing lines and figures across from that hooded, cloaked... thing... of his, was looking immensely bored.

"I'm _bored_," he groaned. "When is that damn spell going to be ready?"

The hooded, cloaked thing sighed, looking up from the ethereal seal. "I've told you before, master-nin. If _anyone_ were able to come up with an estimate for that it would be you-nin."

Dire Rat sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I know... But _still!_ I haven't been this bored in _years! _It feels like I've been out here for MONTHS! You know?"

"Then find something to do-nin."

It was silent for a moment or two, maybe even nearly a minute. The thing toiled with tracing out the eerily shining lines of the array and planting strange, runic sigils at various points along the way.

With a sigh, Dire Rat gave the magic circle underway a cursory glance before shaking his head and muttering something under his breath. "Gh...s ...c...n't... ma...ic... wor... sh..."

The thing briefly looked up from the array and cocked its... _head?_... "Did you say something-nin?"

"Nothing, nothing," Dire Rat replied nonchalantly, looking the very picture of boredom. "You must've been hearing things, because I haven't said a word," he said, waving dismissively.

"Okay... If you say so, master... ... ... -nin."

Dire Rat grinned slyly.

Then, after several minutes had passed in silence between the two, Dire Rat suddenly jumped to his feet and began belting out a song.

"... _I'm Pop-eye the Sail-or Ma~n_

_ I'm Pop-eye the Sail-or Ma~n!_

_ I yam wot I yam_

_ And that's all wot I yam,_

_ I'm Pop-eye the Sail-or Maaa~an~!_"

The thing groaned, but Dire Rat continued to sing.

"_I'm one tough ga-zoo-kus_

_ Wot hates all pa-loo-kas_

_ Wot ain't on the ups and square~!_

_ Boy! I biffs 'em and buffs 'em_

_ And al-ways out-roughs 'em,_

_ But none of 'em gets no-where~!_

_ Now, if anyone dasses to risk my "fisk",_

_ It's "Boff" and it's "Wham" un-der-stan'~?_

_ So keep good be-hav-or_

_ It's your one life-sav-er_

_ With Pop-eye the Sail-or Maaa~an~!_"

One of the hooded, cloaked thing's glowing yellow eyes seemed to twitch beneath its hood.

"_Oh! I'm Pop-eye the Sail-or Ma~n,_

_ I'm Pop-eye the Sail-or Ma~n!_

_ I'm strong to the "finich",_

_ 'Cause I eats me "SPINACH";_

_ I'm POP-EYE THE SAIL-OR MAAA~AN~!_"

"... you need a new hobby-nin."

"Bah! Whadda _you _know?"

The hooded, cloaked thing sighed, but it said nothing more.

* * *

[Narrio Wakamator: "And now that this brief musical interlude is finished, let us return to the scene already under way back at the mansion."]

* * *

Hinagiku glared at the Narrator. "Oh, _come on!_" she spat, "What is this, I don't even... I mean... _GAH!_" She started tugging at her hair in frustration. "Ending the scene like that, only to come right back to it...? And what the heck was up with that whole musical number? What was the point of that?-! What is the point of any of this?-!-?-! It's like the writer doesn't even _care!_"

Izumi, Maria, and Ayumu sweat-dropped with flawless synchronization. They were staring worriedly and nervously at the furiously ranting pinkette who seemed to be arguing with thin air.

"... Nyaah..." murmured Izumi, "Did I miss something...? Who is Hina yelling at? I mean, I'm kinda grateful, since she was looking at me really scary-like, before, but it's still kind of odd, you know? I mean, one moment she looks like she's about to execute me, and the next she starts shouting about 'scene transitions' and 'plot' and 'musical nonsense' and, well... it's just _odd_, isn't it?"

"Uh-huh," said Ayumu with a sage nod, "But this sort of thing happens, sometimes."

"Nyeeehh, but does it _really?_ 'Cause, I mean, I'm pretty sure I would've seen this happen before now, if it was something normal with Hina..."

Ayumu cocked her head to the side. "Eh? You sure? 'Cause she's been like this for as long as _I_ have known her."

Izumi frowned. "Hrm... But how long have you known her? I mean, it can't have been very long..."

"True," Ayumu said with a shrug, "I've only know her for... uh... wow, almost a year, actually, now that I think about it... Huh. Hard to believe it's already been that long..." she muttered.

Maria nodded sagely, "Yes, it's hard to believe how quickly time flies. Why, it feels like it was only yesterday that I'd ran over Hayate with my bike, but that was the Christmas before last, now..."

Ayumu and Izumi stared at Maria.

"You... ran over him...?" said Ayumu, getting a slightly dangerous glint in her eye.

Maria sweat-dropped nervously. "Ah, but to be fair, he _was_ lying in the middle of the sidewalk when it happened!" she explained quickly, holding up her hands in a placating gesture.

Izumi blinked. "Eh? Why would 'Ta-kun have been lying on the sidewalk on Christmas? Wouldn't he have been here with you and Nagi?"

"No..." Maria said, shaking her head, "This was before Hayate-kun became Lady Nagi's butler..."

Izumi blinked. "Huh? You mean he wasn't always Nagi's butler?"

Maria and Ayumu face-faulted.

Maria was the quickest to stand back up, and–after brushing off her apron–she said, "No, of course not! Why, he only became her butler in the first place because we had needed a new butler and he had needed a new job. And even _then _our paths only ever intersected in the first place because I had brought him back to mansion to recuperate after being hit by that car... Although, I suppose that if I had known at the time that he had originally been attempting to kidnap milady himself, I probably would have left him for the police to take care of..."

Ayumu scowled. "Wait, first you say he was run over a bicycle, and then that he was hit by a car...? ...And what was that about kidnapping Nagi...?"

"Well," Maria nodded, "He _was_ hit by the car while attempting to rescue Lady Nagi from a pair of kidnappers... though that was only after I ran him over on my bicycle..."

Izumi blinked. "Nyeh? But didn't you say that Hayata-kun was the one doing the kidnapping?"

"Yes. ... Wait, no! Err... well, now that I think aout it, it's kind of both 'yes' AND 'no', really... Ah, well, you see... that is to say... this and that... a little here and a little there..." Maria muttered, gesticulating uselessly as she struggled to find the right words. "Well, no, he didn't – not really," she finally decided. "Because the fact of the matter is that Lady Nagi was kidnapped by two lowlifes while Hayate-kun was calling here for a ransom... _or trying to, at any rate_..." she added under her breath, remembering with a sigh how the lad had hung up almost immediately after calling, when he had thoughtlessly gave his name first thing after calling.

Izumi scowled. "Eh? But if he was calling for a ransom, then didn't he kidnap her after all?" Izumi inquired thoughtfully.

"... well, yes, I suppose that would be one way to look at it..." Maria reluctantly conceded.

"I don't believe it!" Ayumu interjected fiercely in the most stentorian tone she could manage, "Hayate-kun is a nice, kind, decent person who would never, ever do such a thing!-!" she declared firmly. "You... You... You're full of crap! There's no way Hayate could ever be a kidnapper!-!"

"Ah, yes," Maria murmured, nodding in agreement, "That is also certainly a valid point, though maybe not it the way you intended... But any way you look at it, Hayate _was_ originally planning to kidnap milady. He told me as much, himself, after his first day working here."

Izumi frowned. "Nyeh, but if that's the case, then why didn't you fire him?"

Ayumu turned on Izumi. "What the heck!-?" she snapped angrily, getting right in the other girl's face. "You... I thought you were on my side! Don't you like Hayate-kun, too? That day... You three told me that you were his lovers! Even if it was just a joke, surely you wouldn't turn on him just like!-!"

"Nyeeeeehhh!" Izumi squeaked, holding her arms up in an attempt to ward off the pissed off Hamster who was currently invading her personal space and 'getting all up in her grill', as some might say. "No, no, no! It's not like that! You misunderstand me! I was just posing a legitimate question! I was just playing devil's advocate, is all! Please don't hit me with your scary rapeface!"

Ayumu sweat-dropped, but she also backed off a little bit, her temper cooling. "Oh, okay... Yeah, I guess that _is _a good question, though... Even with what we know about what a nice person Hayate-kun is, it does seem kind of, well... kind of _dumb_ to continue to employ someone who confessed to something like attempted kidnapping, _especially_ if their job involved taking care of the very person they confessed to attempting to kidnap..."

"I know, right!-?" exclaimed Izumi.

Maria sweat-dropped. "Hey, now, that's not very nice of you... I'll have you know that Hayate-kun had a very good reason for it!"

"Well, _duh,_" said Ayumu, rolling her eyes. "Of _course_ he must have had a good reason, but still, you shouldn't have just—"

"—I felt _sorry_ for him, OKAY?-!" Maria snapped, looking incredibly flustered. "I know that I probably shouldn't have let myself be swayed by his story, but I _was!_ It wasn't his fault...! It wasn't his fault that his parents sold him to the Yakuza to have his organs harvested in order to cover a debt of one hundred fifty million yen, you know!-!"

Ayumu and Izumi stared at Maria. The only person in the room to be unaffected by that exclamation was Hinagiku, who was still having another heated argument with the narrator.

"... er, you DID know that, right...?" Maria asked nervously.

The other two simply shook their heads.

"... oh..." Maria winced. "... well, then, I suppose I probably shouldn't have said that... I mean, if Hayate didn't want you to know..." She trailed off. "... and, now that I think about it, I probably shouldn't have said anything about that whole 'kidnapping' thing, either..."

Maria sighed. _'I really hate sleep-deprivation... How on earth does Hayate-kun do it_

The other two were completely silent as they str.

* * *

Lynn Regiostar, late priest and _meido_ fanatic, stared blankly at the nude, insensate form of Hayate Ayasaki. "Okay, Yūrei..." she said slowly, speaking to a shadowy silhouette of a specter that was floating a little behind him and to the left, "I have to admit that I can definitely see why you thought it would be a good idea to get me... How long has he been like this, do you know?"

"Uwooouuh..." breathed the ghast, shaking its head-analogue.

Lynn grimaced. "I see..." he muttered. "... well, I can't imagine that he's having much luck breathing, under all that water..." he said, gesturing towards the overflowing tub and the flooded bathroom floor. "But I wonder why it's so full in the first place? He doesn't take showers with the drain closed, I know that much from common sense and observation."

"Ob-sewoo-fwae-zun?" Yūrei parroted questioningly, his/her/its voice and words distorted by the coterminous veil between the planes of the physical and the metaphysical. It, like Lynn, was a mortal shade which had stayed behind in the world of the living. Unlike Lynn, however, the spirit known simply as 'Yūrei-san' was faded and weak, having dwindled greatly over the many years it had spent dallying in the mortal plane. As a result of this, Yūrei ever sounded like it was speaking from a great distance away, and even other spirits could scarcely interact with it. "Mrrr... wahhh... _hooOOOOosh~_"

With all that said, its words nonetheless still caused Lynn's partly transparent face to flush a rather interesting shade of puce. "No!" he snapped, "Not that kind of observation, you perverted wraith!"

"Muhuhuhuhu..." Yūrei chuckled. "WooOooOOo-ahhhhng... Mrah-oooo'urrrrrr~~~?"

"Yes, I'm sure!-!" Lynn snarled. _"...Honestly..."_ he muttered under his breath, _"...you write ONE creepy-stalker love letter..."_ He then shook his head, speaking up again to say, "How many times do I have to tell you that I am **NOT** that sort of priest?-!"

"_Hooooooooo... ... ..._ Mwuh eeeeehnaaaa'uunnngunnn... i'eeeeee~?"

"He's still legally a minor!" Lynn insisted, "And aside from that, I'll have you know that I am one hundred percent heterosexual!"

"Uwooohhh...? _...hooo... _waaah... iiiih... 'heh-er-ohn-ekh-oo-uh-el'...? Sss'iiilaikh... _haaa..._ 'peh-oh-ha-iiiihl'...?"

"No! It's nothing like that! ... and, actually, how is it that you know the word 'pedophile', but not 'heterosexual', anyways?"

"OoooOoOOoo~~~" Yūrei moaned meaninglessly.

"..." Lynn's eyebrow twitched. "... Oy, oy, don't just evade the question. ...at least, not so _blatantly_..." he muttered.

Yūrei (..._somehow_...) shrugged nonchalantly. It then began to fade.

"Hey! Don't think I'm going to let you get off so easily...!" Lynn growled, moving to grab hold of the other phantom's shoulder, only to end up grasping at nothing, Yūrei gone.

He blinked uselessly, before clenching his fists and grinding his teeth. "... that... _bastard...!_"

He then turned around to give Hayate one last appraising look. He frowned thoughtfully. _'I might say that,'_ he thought to himself, _'but...'_

He eyed the young butler's naked form, his eyes almost hungrily tracing every contour of the lad's solid, lean musculature from head to toe. He shivered slightly, shaking his head. _'Ah, Hayate... You'd best be careful with those looks of yours... Just that is bad enough, but... but that personality...'_ His nose sprung a leak as blood began dripping down from his nostrils. He shivered again. _'Ahhh, you could have made such a __**wonderful **__maid... It's a downright pity you were born a man, really...'_

Hayate, lying face down in the tub fully submerged, sneezed miraculously, causing bubbles to shoot forth from his mouth and nose, streaming to the surface where they popped as the air broke free from the water. And it was indeed miraculous, in a sense, as this sudden nasal ejaculation kick-started his metabolism, shocking him and his body out of a nearly comatose state.

With a sudden motion, Hayate's head broke the surface of the water as he sharply sat back up, coughing and hacking and wheezing his lungs out as he spat up what seemed like enough water to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. His eyes were wide open, and he was trembling. He was deathly cold, his skin damp and clammy. His vision was blurring – he was seeing double, and everything seemed to look much fuzzier than it should have.

Slowly -the movements of his limbs feeling both weak and jerky- he put a hand to his forehead, where he was feeling a great deal of Pain. He felt something sticky there, and he pulled his hand back. Dully, he beheld his palm and noted that it seemed to be covered in... something. Something red.

...Blood...?

He frowned, gritting his teeth. His head was aching terribly, and he could not seem to think straight. His whole body felt so numb, and his movements were unbearably sluggish. He could barely bring himself to move, but feeling the water falling onto his head from the shower nozzle and looking around to see the tub overflowing with cloudy-pink water, he knew that he at least had to turn the shower off.

So, with a long, miserable groan followed by a chorus of soft, weak grunts, he picked himself up off the bottom of the shower basin. Standing up, he steadied himself against the wall with one hand while extending the other one towards the dial/switch/etc. [source?] for the shower. It took him a few tries, due to severe trembling, but he ultimately managed to clasp his fingers around the dial. With a bit of effort, he returned it to the off position.

The constant stream of water spewing from the shower head quickly dwindled to no more than a periodic dripping and dropping.

Hayate stood still, the water-level in the tub a little less than halfway up his calves. He clutched his forehead, which was pounding and throbbing heatedly. It hurt. The only thing he could feel was the pain in head. His mind was foggy. He could not think clearly. He felt dizzy and weak.

He looked back down at the water which filled the tub and drenched the bathroom floor. Blearily, sleepily, he noted that it seemed to have a slight pink tinge. In direct contrast with this, his own skin was a worrying hypothermia-blue.

Not good.

* * *

_Omake: The Death of a Fanficcer_

Hinagiku glared at EvilFuzzy9.

EvilFuzzy9 whimpered.

"Oy, oy, oy, oy! What the heck?-!" Hinagiku snarled. "What's with this bullshit?-! Five thousand! Five thousand words! I know you're a lazy bastard and all, but what the _**he****ll!-?**_ Surely even someone as untalented as you should be able to do better than that! Especially after a month. SERIOUSLY! A FRIGGING _MONTH__ AND A HALF!-!_ That's how LONG everyone has been waiting for you to update this train wreck, and this is what you give them?-! PATHETIC!-!" she howled, punching him in the gut.

"Owowowowow..." EvilFuzzy9 whimpered. "It's not my fault! I mean, I've been so busy with work..."

"You only work three hours a day!"

"But those three hours are during my prime writing time!" the author protested, "And I only get one day off a week! ...not to mention that I've sorta been preoccupied with _Bleach_at the moment..." he added weakly.

"EXCUSES!"

"ACK MY LUNGS! I NEED THOSE FOR BREATHING!-! URK—" he collapsed.

[Narrio Wakamator: "And that is the story of how Hinagiku Katsura killed the author with her bare hands.]

"... I'm... still here... you know. Not... quite... dead... yet..."

[Narrio Wakamator: "He will be misseed."]

"..._bastard_."

* * *

**A/N: _Owari da~_  
**

**...  
**

**...**

**...**

**...**

**Just kidding! **

**But seriously, I have not been having any luck with writing right now, especially not with HnG. But I've had most of what's here sitting in my hard drive uselessly for a while while I've been fussing over this and that. And it's Christmas Eve and I've not made any real progress with this in a while, so I figured I might as well spruce up what I've got, make it presentable and all that, and upload for all you poor fans of mine (_Gawd_ that sounds so pretentious...)**

**Think of it as my (meager) Christmas present to all of you. Now how about you all return the favor, eh? I hear that nice, supportive reviews make excellent Christmas presents for struggling writers~**

**Also, while you're here, how about checking out my tentative _Bleach_ x _Hayate the Combat Butler_ crossover, _Bring it Full or Bring it Empty_?  
**

**(I am so pathetic)  
**

**Lastly, stats prior to updating:**

_Hayate the Combat Butler - Rated: M - English - Humor/Adventure - Chapters: 17 - Words: 118,922 - Reviews: 40 - Updated: 11-7-11 - Published: 2-27-10 - Ayumu & Hayate_

**And additionally:**

_Hits: 10,087 __  
_

_Favorites: 29_

_Alerts: 32_

_C2s: 2  
_

**Chapter Added: **_12-24-11 [December 24, 2011]_

_"I'll proofread when I'm dead! ... or after the Christmas party. See ya~!"  
_


	19. Omake: You Know What I Did Last Night

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A _Hayate the Combat Butler _fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: Eh, man, I'd say it's been a while, but I'm sure you guys're sick of hearing that by now. So I won't. Instead, I'll say that I have not done any work on the next chapter-proper of ONNHc in maybe a month, and I'm honestly not sure when I will. So for now, here's something completely different and entirely unplanned. **

**Also, fuck writer's block.**

**(As an aside, up where I'm living we've gotten a sudden shitload of snow, or at least it seems like it after the relatively snowless winter we'd been having. It's somewhat jarring seeing roadside drifts up to your knees and higher in late February/early March when all of December and January there's hardly been any significant amounts of snow.)**

**WARNING: ****Contains references to underage drinking and slightly lemony sorta-yuri (it's complicated*) and a little bit of shota masturbation in the omake-within-an-omake. So, basically par for the course in this perverted mess. :P**

_*__not really_

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen-and-a-Half:**

**Omake:**

**You Know What I Did Last Night... But What Did I Do?**

It was a lovely, fair spring morning. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the noisy racket of the business district drowned out everything even remotely pleasant or enjoyable about the morning. In short, it was the kind of morning that made you want to jump out of bed and sing along with the birds. Or car horns, as it were.

... Okay, so maybe it _didn't_ make you want to sing. IN FACT, maybe it _actually_ made you want to open the window and give those inconsiderate motorists the middle finger because **dammit **you just wanted a few more hours of rest to sleep off that wild night on the town with your buddies, so why can't those bastards just SHUT THE HELL UP?-!

Such was the ordeal of Saki Kijima.

In her room above the Tachibana video rental store, Saki groaned as light streamed in through her bedroom window. The sun was bright–painfully so–and also, she had to admit to herself, not just a little unwelcome–not after her, Maria, and Haru-san's night on the town. The sunbeam spilling over her bed felt like it was burning her eyes, even through her eyelids. Her head was throbbing, and her eardrums were ringing and thrumming with some incoherent rhythym. It went something like:

_"Ho-vakka-vum ba bum-ba fum!_

_Fee-fi fee-fo ho-ho-hum!_

_Diddly-o diddly-ai dit sam dum!_

_Terri-terri-terri kah rah-rah-RUM!" _

... only it was far more obnoxiously loud and agonizing than could ever be accurately conveyed through writing. It was something like having jackhammers being operated inside her ears simultaneous to a death metal concert being performed in her skull. She felt like her head was in a vice, and she wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep.

_Gawd_, what had they been thinking, going out drinking? Saki honestly had no idea how she had ever gotten talked into doing something so dreadfully irresponsible, or even whose idea it had even been in the first place. But she was certain that it could NOT have been _her_ idea.

Honestly, it had started off innocent enough. After something like an hour and a half of "girl-time" and singing at IMK the three of them had simply been too revved up to return quietly to their respective homes, so they had gone out dancing. With a little bit of swing, and a little bit of jazz, they whiled away the evening cutting up rugs left and right. Maria went through dance partners like potato chips, and Saki herself had a nice time flirting with a very intelligent-looking college student, Jō something-something, who had shared with her some very interesting–if somewhat... _unconventional_–ideas on politics and social issues. As for Haru-san... well, Saki had no clear memories of the gray haired maid after ten, so she had probably bailed out on them somewhere around then.

Not that Saki held it against her, or anything. After all, if _she_ had known what would ultimately transpire that night, she probably would have bailed as well. Because after she and Maria had grown weary of dancing, the idea had somehow made its way into heads to go out _bar-hopping_. And even though neither of them was of legal drinking age, with even Saki being still a couple of months short of twenty-one, Maria had managed to elegantly and expertly bluff their way past each and every bouncer and checkpoint.

As a matter of fact, it turned out that the usually cool-headed brunette was actually one hell of a party animal when she let her hair down, and that she was a very playful drunk. Alcohol, it seemed, only amplified Maria's wild side, making her seem almost like a completely different person. Because though Maria _did_ occasionally like to party hard when sober, even Saki had nary seen _that_ side of her more than once or twice over all the years she had known her. And once _that_ Maria–the selfsame, ever-serious, ultra-prodigy maid who lived to work and worked to serve–got going, she was as unstoppable as the Juggernaut on a warpath. When she had her groove on, no one could poop her party, and nothing could stand in the way of her enjoying herself.

In that respect, Maria never changed, whether sober or intoxicated, playful or serious. She was a brilliant, talented young woman with a drive and a resolve to match all but the most hardcore determinators tit-for-tat. Her spirit burned with a secret spark of ambition that far exceeded her station in life as a maidservant, an ambition she suppressed and ignored in favor of her mistress, for whom she cared deeply. She was unflinchingly loyal to her lady and would never speak out of line save in the young heiress's best interests (which, admittedly, was a regular necessity when it came to dealing with that infamously pertinaciously indolent lass). She was also completely intractable once she set her mind on something, and absolutely unflinching in the face of adversity.

Her will was adamant and iron, deeply delved and peerlessly wrought into a broad, stout shield. Her tongue, directed by such a cunning and perceptive mind, was like an elfin fairy-sword wrought of tempered dwarven steel and held in the hands of some mythic hero of yore. Her eyes were like twin shining stars welling with a sublime beauty and intelligence that could chase away all the little fears and doubts in one's heart simply by locking eyes; but their light, under dire circumstances, could just as easily become a source of terror, withering the hardiest and most ardent fighting spirits with but a passing glance. Her hair was a rich, glossy chocolate-brown, as though God Himself, when he first shaped her, had taken into His hands the fertile earth of the lost garden, Eden, threaded it to be as fine and soft as silk, and polished it to a perfect subtle shine.

Her body was equally lovely and masterfully formed, with skin smooth and soft and all but free of mortal blemish, save for her hands, which bore the subtly calloused palms and deft nimble fingers of an honest worker and artisan, regardless of any creams or lotions or cosmetic tinctures that were applied to them. Likewise, her back and shoulders, while perfectly feminine, held an unmistakable strength and stature that were increasingly rare in modern folk. Maria was strong, yes. Her limbs, while perhaps a touch soft, held a slight domestic stoutness and a firm, sinuous musculature built up over years of housework and personal conditioning. In addition to all of this, her youthful hips were slender and shapely, and her bosoms were shapely and perky.

Saki admired all of these qualities in her "cute kōhai". She was proud to be accounted the friend of such an incredible person, and she aspired to be a strong, trustworthy companion and mentor to her. That, if she were less sure of her sexual identity, she would probably have had a slight crush on the younger maid was ultimately immaterial... But alcohol has done much crazier things to people before, such that even the most stalwart sentry could lapse in their vigilance, given enough drink. And Saki had easily taken in thrice her threshhold for good judgement in cheap liquor, so things understandably ended up getting... a little out of hand. Oh, it had been a wild affair indeed, by her standards, with singing and dancing and even a bit of flirting...

She blushed furiously as certain memories of getting a little... _touchy-feely_... with the younger maid resurfaced. At the time, her mind addled by fumes of Kirin and Yebisu (and even a bottle of some American beer called _Pabst Blue Ribbon_ that the barkeep swore was a big hit over in China[**1**]), it had not seemed like such a bad idea. Hell, in that addled state she had thought it was the best idea since sliced bread. And Maria had not helped the matter, what with her full, luscious lips, her sultry "come hither" look, and that distressingly low-cut top that revealed _so much_ as the brunette leaned across the table to drunkenly plant a sloppy, wet kiss on her friend's lips...

Saki shuddered as, bit by bit and piece by piece, she recalled the previous night's events. After that kiss, the evening had quickly spiralled out of control, with both women doing things they never would have done had they been in their right minds. Her face reddened at the memory of her and Maria, in some seedy bar called the _Seventh Heaven_, throwing off their tops and making out for all to see. Saki raised a hand to her naked chest as she threw off her blanket, absently recalling the feeling of Maria caressing her there, tickling her areolas and tweaking her nipples even as soused onlookers watched and crowed lecherous cheers and lewd suggestions to the pair...

Saki shivered and dropped her hand. Frowning slightly, something niggling at the back of her mind, she stood up. Her legs felt like jelly as she shakily and uneasily strode over to her dresser. _'Now that I think about it...'_ she thought,_ 'Wasn't there something about a "recording"...?'_

Her eyes widened as the implication of this sank in, triggering a terrible epiphany. _'It's all on tape!' _she realized in abject mortification, remembering the sleazy westerner with the expensive-looking camcorder who had somehow managed to talk her and Maria into "putting on a performance" for his camera.

Slowly stepping back from the dresser, her maid uniform and a bra in hand, Saki whimpered. Then, as she stood there stewing in miserable regret and humiliation, she was struck by a pique of morbid curiousity. Dreading the truth yet at the same time _needing_ to know it, she tossed the clothes onto the foot of her bed, grabbed her glasses from the bedside table, and dashed over to the computer desk where her laptop was hibernating.

Naked as a lark save for a pair of comfy cotton panties, she flipped it open and hastily input her access password (_m31d0qu33n-GR33n78534_). Her desktop loaded up far too slowly for her tastes, frantic as she was, and the second it finished she double-clicked on the icon for her preferred web browser. Wasting not even a second, her fingers danced across the keyboard as she typed a few relevant keywords ("lesbian", "topless", "drunk", etc.) into the _Moogle _internet search engine and modified the parameters to check specifically for videos recently uploaded to various video sites, including such ones as _Tomi Tomi Kirishi_[**2**] or _MeTube_.

Almost immediately, she found it. Right there on the front page, in the thirteenth displayed result, was a static thumbnail of her... suckling on her friend's breasts. A small part of herself died right then and there–probably her dignity–and she decided that it wouldn't be worth it to leave her room today. Closing the browser, logging off, shutting her laptop, and crawling right back into bed, unintentionally kicking the clothes off the foot of her bed (but not caring), she decided that she would just sleep in for a day. Or a week. Or a year. However long it took for the humiliation and mortification to wear off.

* * *

_Omake-within-an-omake: "The Internet is for Porn"_

Wataru nervously checked over his shoulder as his fingers hovered over the keyboard of his computer. Nobody there. He looked back at the monitor's screen, where the thin vertical line blinked in and out of existence in the otherwise empty entry field. He knew this was a bad idea–he had assured Saki only yesterday that he would stop doing this, and even though it had been empty promise, it still felt like he was betraying his word by doing this so soon.

But he was a growing boy in the throes of puberty. His body was flushed with multitudes of various hormones, and his fledgling sex drive combined with an obvious dearth of sex (as it should be, given his youth) led to him having an "itch". And even if it only made things worse in the long run, it was only instinctive to try and scratch it. It was only natural for him to do this, he told himself, Saki would understand, even if she might act otherwise–this and more meaningless platitudes and justifications he whispered to himself as he typed in a search phrase. Checking the string once over for any typos, he nodded to himself and hit "Search".

It took only a few seconds for the search results to appear, and he went to sifting through them. He might have been young, but he was a Tachibana, and he thusly prided himself on possessing a highly sophisticated and discerning taste. Eventually, he came upon a title that looked promising–"Topless Lesbians Play With Each Other's Tits"–and clicked on it.

It took only fractions of a second for the video to load, and Wataru gingerly undid his zipper, squirting a bit of lotion onto his hand and getting a box of tissues at the ready before pressing "Play".

The sound of a woman moaning was the first thing to greet him. The voice sounded vaguely familar once he got past the tinny quality of it, but he shoved that aside as felt his pubescent member beginning to swell. The image quality was not the best he had ever seen, but it was significantly more than sufficient for him to make out and appreciate the important bits as he gently and slowly nursed his erection to full mast.

The camera, he noticed absently as he stroked his head appreciatively to the sound of the girls moaning each other's names–the words were muffled though, as their mouths were quite full of one another–never seemed to focus clearly on either girl's face. But as the video was quite simply a vehicle for smut, this detracted nothing much from the experience. And he once more shunted aside that feeling of familiarity as he focused on the sight of the green-haired girl nuzzling her face into the soft, luscious valley that was the brunette's cleavage as said brunette snaked her hands down to her beltline, flipping up her skirt and easing down her panties, first revealing neatly trimmed, chocolate brown pubic hair and then the moist lips of her pussy, which she then proceeded to part. The camera briefly zoomed in as she took the verdette's hand and guided it there, wordlessly entreating the other girl to plunge her fingers in, which she did with gusto, briefly removing her face from the brunette's cleavage to lean up to her face and—

Wataru's eyes widened in shock, his hand all but frozen to his dick. With his other hand, the one not covered in lotion, he hastily paused the video. Disbelieving eyes scrutinized the lightly pixelated faces of the two girls whose actions he had been pleasuring himself to not even ten seconds earlier.

_'Saki? Maria? What the hell?-!'_

* * *

[**1**]: _Pabst Blue Ribbon_ is a (cheap) beer brewed and branded in the Midwestern US, the same region where I live. It purportedly tastes like piss, but it's also dirt cheap, so it sees a decent amount of consumption amongst thrifty and/or poor midwesterners (like my late paternal grandfather, Grandpa Couillard, who was the former). In America, at least. Overseas in China, however, it is a whole different story, where it is paradoxically billed as an expensive high class beverage and is popular among those with a decent amount of disposable income. Which is mindboggling, but whatever.

tl;dr: cheap American beer is expensive in China, and this is "funny".

[**2**]: This is a Bland Name version of _Nico Nico Douga_, a popular Japanese video site. I had no idea if the name of the site actually had any sort of meaning, so I decided to go from the angle that _Nico Nico Douga_ is sorta like _Nick Nick Doug_, and _Tomi Tomi Kirishi (Tommy Tommy Chris)_ was the result.

* * *

**A/N: Welp. That was... definitely something, huh? Almost entirely unrelated to the rest of the fic, sure, and having all but nothing to do with progressing the plot, yeah, but an update is an update, even if it ends degenerating into smut at the end (which, admittedly, I managed to mostly keep in the omake). I'm not certain how the omake (of the chapter that is in itself basically a glorified omake) managed to get so lemony. My concept for it was basically, "Wataru comes across the vid of Saki (and Maria) while browsing for porn (hence the title), watches it, and freaks out when he realizes who it's starring", plain and simple, and my original image of the video in question was originally far tamer, starting out as simply Maria and Saki making out. But as I wrote, my more perverted muses c****ontinually wrestled it further and further into dirtier and dirtier territory until finally it was straight up amateur lesbian porn.**

**I blame ****FairyKyū****bi (FairyKurama?), myself.**

**Also, I'm thinking of doing shorter chapters to see how that works, since 10k+ words was fine when I had plenty of inspiration and all the free time in the world, but it's a bit unrealistic for me at the moment. What do you guys think?**

**Also, also, please let me know if you find any misspellings. Doc Manager is acting all weird for me at the moment, and I can't get its spellcheck to work, for some reason.**

**TTFN and R&R!**

**Lastly, as always, the stats prior to updating:**

_Hayate the Combat Butler - Rated: M - English - Humor/Adventure - Chapters: 18 - Words: 124,031 - Reviews: 41 - Updated: 12-24-11 - Published: 2-27-10 - Ayumu & Hayate_

**And, additionally:**

_Hits: 11,511_

_Favorites: 32_

_Alerts: 37_

_C2s: 2_

**Chapter Added: **_3-3-12__ [March 3, 2012]_


	20. Mysterious Happenings are Bread and Butt

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A _Hayate the Combat Butler _fic

By EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: Well, like I said in the closing author's note of the previous chapter, I'm experimenting to see if shorter chapters will work for this. In terms of plot, this chapter doesn't progress things very much, and hardly any of the girls appear in it, but I wanna try and get this particular subplot progressed to set up some revelations (MUCH) further down the line. Also, the entire subplot is honestly meant to seem sorta surreal, but I dunno how well I did with conveying that through the story itself...**

**WARNING: No smut this time (wonder of wonders!), but there's a bit of very, very slight gore, as well as some rather strange goings on in the Sanzen'in mansion.**

* * *

**Last time on 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

* * *

_Hayate stood still, the water-level in the tub a little less than halfway up his calves. He clutched his forehead, which was pounding and throbbing heatedly. It hurt. The only thing he could feel was the pain in head. His mind was foggy. He could not think clearly. He felt dizzy and weak._

_He looked back down at the water which filled the tub and drenched the bathroom floor. Blearily, sleepily, he noted that it seemed to have a slight pink tinge. In direct contrast with this, his own skin was a worrying hypothermia-blue._

_Not good._

* * *

**Now, for the next installment of 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

•

•

•

**Chapter Sixteen:**

**Mysterious Happenings are the Bread and Butter of a Sanzen'in Butler**

**or**

**Shit Gets Weird(er)**

Pain. Pain. Pain. Throbbing pain. Searing pain. Stabbing pain. Pain of very conceivable type and degree. His thoughts were foggy. He could not think clearly. There was pressure against the back of his eyeballs, and his extremities felt still so cold and still so numb.

And yet, in spite of the numbness, it... it... it... _hurt_.

... ... ... Wait... _what_ hurt...? Was it his head that hurt...?

... Yes... Yes, it was his head... His _head _was what hurt...

_** OW!**_

... ... ...Yup.

It was definitely his head.

... But _why_...? Why his head? Why did his head _hurt so much?_

Hayate shook his head, trying to clear it. No, he should not worry himself over such a minor thing. He had more important things to take care of. He had to _focus_. He had to wash up, get dressed, and _revolt kill rise up rebel reclaim burn the heavens scour the earth kill them all and make them pay_

He flinched, clutching his forehead. He stumbled out of the tub. The headache was getting worse. It felt like the front of his skull was being slowly wedged open with a rusty battleaxe. The pain was—_humiliating shameful disgraceful disgusting why must you be so __weak_—dreadful.

He staggered across the bathroom floor. He had to get to the sink and wash off the blood. He needed to clean the wound and bandage it. The injury was bad–he'd had worse before, and he was no stranger to head injuries, but it would be foolish to leave it untended. No matter how badly he needed to get back to work, he could not afford risking infection. He would be of no use to anyone if he was bedridden, after all.

... now if only the sink was not _so far away_. The few feet seemed like miles to Hayate in his borderline delirious state, and the white tile floor seemed to stretch on endlessly before him. The sink and medicine cabinet seemed to shrink into the distance even as he struggled to put one foot in front of the other. His legs were weak and trembling. His vision swam in a blur of light and dark as he did his best to focus on his destination. His head throbbed as he tried to ignore the—_pillars of marble towers of ivory streets of gold rivers of blood blood red red blood so wet and warm and burning fire and acrid smoke and screams screams screaming screaming screams of pain and fear and hate and love and joy and sorrow and_—pain.

Dimly, it occured to him that he should not be thinking those thoughts that were not his own or hearing those voices inside his head, but he shrugged it off. It probably was not anything TOO bad. He was just hallucinating due to blood loss. That was what he told himself, at any rate. Part of him wondered if that was actually how bleeding out worked, but the rest of him said to just shut up and go along with it.

So he did.

* * *

For the third time this morning, Lynn found himself cursing his spectral state of existence. No matter what he did, not a single one of the many people inside the mansion could see or hear him. Which was a rather significant problem, since he _really_ did not want Hayate to die.

"Oy, oy, oy!" the dearly departed priest shouted in vain at the silver-haired young lass who was sleepily brushing her teeth. "Come on, can't any of you hear me?-!"[**1**]

The girl was wearing naught but a bathtowel, having just finished showering in one of the mansion's many guest bathrooms. The tightly wrapped towel pressed her surprisingly well-developed breasts up and together, showing off a good deal more cleavage than a girl of her age and body mass had any right to possess. Her skin was smooth and young, and had Lynn not been so preoccupied with his self-appointed mission, he likely would have been thanking his stars that ordinary folks could not see him.

Drooping green eyes stared blearily at their reflection in the mirror as white minty froth dripped down from her mouth into the basin of the sink. Sakuya Aizawa, stifling a yawn, ignored the slight prickling sensation at the base of her neck. She was dead tired, and she wanted nothing more than to go back to bed. But she had school today, and her minders would throw a fit if she decided to play hookey.

Idly, Sakuya wondered if Isumi was still asleep. Then she dismissed this thought. _'Naaahh,' _she concluded, _'Isumi may be a space case at times, but she's not the sort to oversleep...'_

* * *

Isumi, bundled up in a tangled cocoon of blankets on the large, heart-shaped bed back in the Love Nest where she and most of the other girls had been sleeping, snored softly as she slept soundly, oblivious to the world around her.

With a cute, small "achoo!", she sneezed in her sleep. For a second, she seemed to stir, as if waking, but then it stopped. She was still once more, save for the soft rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

* * *

Sakuya nodded to herself as she spat out the toothpaste, taking a sip of water to swish around in her mouth. _'Yeah, she's probably already dressed and raring to go... at least, as much as she ever is...'_ Spitting out the water, she took a swig of mouthwash and started gargling.

Lynn, watching this, his gaze briefly drifting down to Sakuya's bosom for the umpteenth time in the last few minutes, decided that he was not getting anywhere with this. He turned to leave, paused, turned back around to give Sakuya one last appraising look, then turned again and floated through the bathroom door.

"There must be _someone_ here who can see me..." he muttered as he phased through a wall and turned down a hallway. A moment later, he passed Tama, who was going the opposite direction.

"Good morning," the white tiger greeted pleasantly as he walked past the phantasmal father.

"And the same to you, my brother," the priest returned automatically.

A beat.

Lynn's eyes widened as realization struck. "Wait!" he exclaimed, whirling around to point accusingly at the tiger, "You can see me?-!"

Tama, on all fours, turned around. He tilted his head at the apparition. "Yes," he replied plainly. "I can see you," he said as conversationally as if he were explaining that he was certified to perform boiler maintenance.

"But, but I'm a ghost...!" Lynn stammered, uncertain how to handle this latest development. Seriously, after all the people he had unsuccessfully tried to contact that morning, a _tiger_ of all things was the only one able to see him?

[Narrio Wakamator: "Actually, young Miss Isumi would also be able to see him, if she were awake."]

Yeah, well fat lotta good _that _does. Because she isn't. And even if she _were_ awake, her sense of direction is utterly dreadful–we're talking Ryoga Hibiki or Roronoa Zoro levels of misaligned spatial orientation awareness, here. [**2**]

[Narrio Wakamator: "Well, yes, but my point stands."]

Fine. Whatever. _Anyways_, getting back to the matter at hand...

Tama gave the ghostly priest a shrug, or at least the nearest approximation of one possible with his feline skeletal structure. "And?" he prompted, idly curious.

"And, well... hardly anyone else can see me, and the only ones who CAN were, well..." Distracted, he shook his head. "No! That doesn't matter. You have to come with me! The butler is in trouble!" he exclaimed.

Tama cocked his head to one side. "The butler...? Do you mean Hayate, or are you referring to Klaus?"

Lynn blinked. "... who's Klaus?" he asked.

Tama thought for a second. Then he gave another shrug and said, "Eh. No one important, really."

Lynn stared at Tama for a second, then he shook his head again. "Whatever," he said, "The point is that Hayate is in serious need of medical attention!"

Tama frowned, inasmuch as a tiger can frown, due to the relatively limited number of expressions possible for his feline facial muscles. This was... vexing. Hayate was in trouble, and he was probably the only one who could help. And if the frantic manner of the spirit before him was anything to go by, then the butler's condition must be most dire, indeed–possibly even life-threatening...

For a second, he contemplated leaving the butler to his fate. After all, he had no significant attachment to Hayate, and the boy _did_ take up much his mistress's time and energy–time and energy that _should_ be devoted to _him, Tama_. He quickly quashed that notion, however. Nagi was terribly fond of the boy, and so was Maria, who fed and watered him. And Tama, himself, could not say he particularly _disliked _the youthful butler, or anything...

With a low sigh, the tiger nodded to the deceased priest. "Where is he?"

* * *

Standing before the sink in his private bathroom, his fingers curled around the rim of the porcelain fixture as he steadied himself, Hayate looked into the mirror.

And he grimaced at what he saw reflected back at him.

His hair was soaked and matted down against his scalp by the weight of the moisture it retained. There was an unhealthy pallor to his complexion. His skin was badly pruned, and the epidermis was peeling off in places. [**3**] But what really caught his attention was the gruesome looking head-wound. A sizable pinkish gash in his forehead, the skin around it was swollen and red. It was no longer bleeding, it appeared, but from the tinge of the water coating the bathroom floor and filling the bathtub, the size of the wound, and his general weakness and light-headedness, Hayate had a feeling that a goodly amount of blood had leaked out before the clotting agents finally managed to seal up the breaches in the blood vessels.

And the injury was already scabbing over, from the looks of it.

Hayate's grimace deepened, and he furrowed his brow in troubled contemplation. "How long was I out...?" he wondered, staring into the reflection of his blue-green eyes. Then he gave a start, startled at the sound of his voice. He sounded so weak as he rasped out the words, his waterlogged lungs rattling with the additional stress.

He wheezed, suddenly. He could hardly breathe as he hacked and coughed, spitting up more water as his frame was wracked with the involuntary spasms. It hurt, oh heavens it hurt _so fucking much._ His throat was raw, and with each cough it felt like fire was searing the sensitive tissue. He wheezed, barely able to breath.

The room spun around him as he feebly attempted to support himself against the sink. It was all he could do to keep from collapsing onto the floor. It hurt so much, but he had to keep standing, he had to keep fighting, he had to _stop this please stop this what are you doing no no what is this please stop this my love please no don't do this no if you do if you go through with this it will destroy us all so please please please just stop this my love please no no no_

Hayate groaned weakly as he felt himself being overcome with thoughts not his own. His mind was flooded with foreign memories. Thoughts of despair... Some great war... or perhaps a rebellion...?

A pained cry ripped through his lips, but it was not his voice. Faces, strange and unfamiliar, swam through his vision as he felt his body trembling with some unknown anticipation. Confused, conflicting thoughts and emotions bubbled up inside of him as words in a tongue he knew not, spoken with a voice he had not, spilled forth from his mouth in desperate entreaties and woeful lamentations. His heart drowned in a sadness he felt not. Despair overwhelmed him, yet it came from him not.

He looked into the mirror one last time, and a pair of shining yellow eyes set in a flawless, unmarred, regal feminine face framed with flowing red locks looked back at him. The skin of his neck burned, as though he were collared with solid flame.

_doooom_

Hayate swooned, what little that remained of his strength having left him. Collapsing limply to the floor, he fell into darkness once more.

* * *

Lynn shuddered, racing through the hallways with Tama not far behind, and came to an abrupt stop. A chill ran down his ectoplasmic spine as he felt _something_ in the air. He recognized the feeling, the feeling that something _Bad_ was happening. The feeling in the air was nearly identical to what had felt earlier that morning. It was something he remembered vividly.

He brought a hand to his forehead, feeling faint. "No..." he murmured, "Not again... Hayate..."

Remembering what had happened the last time he had felt those unmistakeably bad vibes, Lynn shuddered and redoubled his pace.

* * *

_Omake: Whatever Happened to Butler Klaus?_

Klaus stared into the endless darkness, which stretched out endlessly in all directions. He was all alone, again. Tama had left.

He was all alone, trapped in the Limbo of Forgotten Characters.

"Is anyone out there...?" he called out. "... ... ... I really need to use the bathroom."

* * *

[**1**]: I have no memory of who can see and hear Lynn, aside from Isumi, Hayate, and "Alice". I get the vague impression that Sakuya can, but I have no idea if this is true and I'm having some difficulties with reading HnG on my computer (but not other manga, strangely enough...). If anyone knows who all is able to see Lynn, please let me know.

I mean, I know that only high-spec spirit mediums or the ones who were present in that labyrinth when he first appeared can see him, but I cannot for the life of me remember who that includes...

[**2**]: I usually try to keep internal consistency with the general western order of given name first, family name last, but seriously, try saying Zoro Roronoa in your head. It sounds absurd. And it even _looks_ ugly written like that. Seriously, **look at it.** _Zoro Roronoa__. _I usually TRY not to compromise things like that for silly reasons like thid, but I have my limits.

Also, I tried to do a search for technical terms for a poor sense of direction, but I couldn't find anything, so I improvised. "Misaligned spatial orientation awareness" was the result. :D

[**3**]: You know how your skin gets all pruney if you spend too long in the water? The specifics of how this works are really complicated, but basically, the only reason your skin doesn't completely fall apart in water is due to its complex shape basically allowing it to absorb a **lot** of water before reaching the point where it would actually start to dissolve. In the story I'm playing pretty fast and loose with the time-frames and mechanics involved in the actual process, but hey, this is fanfiction. We've no need for your stinkin' facts and logic, here!

...except for when we do.

* * *

**A/N: Meh. That omake at the end was kinda weak. **

**Man, I ended up cutting a **_**lot**_** of material from that scene with Hayate. I also added some stuff, but the amount of content excised is really quite staggering for me. There was a lot of stuff in what I cut out, but the foreshadowing in the original form was really rather clumsily done and terribly drawn out. Some of it, I honestly might cannibalize for later use in this fic or elsewhere, but I really wanna try and see if I can make this work with shorter, easier to write chapters. The biggest thing, is that they will be a lot leaner, because the kind of detailing and tangents that were in the longer chapters, while nice and all, were also time-consuming to think up and write out. **

**I can't guarantee that updates will be written in anything resembling a proper schedule, but with these smaller chapters they will hopefully be quicker to put out. But we'll just have to wait and see, I guess.**

**Feel free to give advice and critiques as I try to find a style that will maintain or improve upon the level of quality you all have probably maybe possibly come to expect from this fic while at the same time allowing me to finish it some time before I die of old age or you all lose interest (if you haven't already *sweat-drop*). **

**OH! And if you have the time, check out my oneshot AyuHayaHina oneshot _Midnight Kisses_ and the follow-up fic _Reaction Shots_. They need more loooovvee~**❤

**And lastly, as always, the stats prior to updating:**

_Hayate the Combat Butler - Rated: M - English - Humor/Adventure - Chapters: 19 - Words: 127,496 - Reviews: 42 - Updated: 3-3-12 - Published: 2-27-10 - Ayumu & Hayate_

**And, additionally:**

_Hits: 11,982_

_Favorites: 33_

_Alerts: 36_

_C2s: 2_

**Chapter Added: **_3-23-12 [March 23, 2012]_


	21. A Notice, From Me to My Readers

**A Notice, From Me to My Readers**

By

EvilFuzzy9

Our dog, Treasure, passed away last Thursday evening on 4/5/2011, just a few days before Easter, around 6:00 or 7:00 PM. She was, I dunno, at least ten, eleven years old, maybe even older. A sweet, dear old golden retriever thoroughbred, she was really starting to show her age near the end but nonetheless still betrayed at times a stubbornly lingering spark of vibrant energy from her youth that refused to be extinguished until the very final hours of her life, when she could nary muster the energy or the strength to shift herself more than a little bit this way or that way.

I was the only one home at the time it happened, though both my brothers and my father had been there earlier and all remarked on how Treasure was just lying on the floor in the middle of the hallway next to her raised food and water dishes. It was quiet, and I was on the computer like I always was, when suddenly I heard thudding and rasping coming from the hallway. I saw Treasure slowly sort of convulsing on the floor, her body shuddering with every clearly labored breath. So I went over and comforted her, talking softly to her and alternately petting her and scratching her ears and sorta rubbing her tummy.

After a while, it started to settle down, so I got up and went back to my room briefly, checked up on my laptop, then I went back through the hallway past Treasure and into the living room to turn off the TV that had been left on by my youngest brother when he had left for work (a flatscreen that my parents had finally picked up a week or so earlier after having had it on lay away for a good while). I don't quite know or remember what was on at the time–even though I absent-mindedly half-watched it for a few seconds while I looked for the remote to turn the TV off–but I think it might have one of those pawn shop shows, based what I can recall of what I saw.

But anyways, when I went back into the hallway to check up on Treasure and make sure she was doing alright, I got down to pet her only to notice that she didn't seem to be moving. At all. So, getting a little nervous, I tried a number of things to check on her vitals based on what little I could recall of first aid from my boy scout days, clumsily feeling for a pulse and listening for breathing or a heartbeat. That last one was inconclusive, though I imagine it was solely because by that point my own heartbeat was fairly thundering in my ears as the conclusion became clearer. As a final test, if only because I was, while not exactly hysterical, still rather distressed and partly refusing to believe what was happening because _no this can't be happening no no nononono it can't be real I must be mistaken she's okay, really, she is, she just HAS to be...!_, I held my hand an inch or so from her nose to see if I could maybe feel her breath and _prove that she's okay and you're just being a worrywart, Tim._

I felt nothing.

As it registered in my mind that Treasure was _deaddeaddeaddead_, I numbly got out my cell phone and dialed my parents. I can't remember exactly who I tried first, but I do know that my mother was the one to answer. For a moment, I was unable to talk, the words caught in my throat. I was unable to speak, but still I forced myself to, and a few seconds later, standing over Treasure's motionless form, I got out the words, "Mom... this is Tim... I don't think Treasure's breathing."

Naturally, she responded by saying that she and dad would be home as soon as they could, cutting short their weekly night out. With that said and done with, I mumbled an empty farewell and hung up.

I don't know how long I stood over Treasure, just... just staring at her, watching her and doing my best not to think. I think an hour or more may have passed before I finally wrenched myself away from her and sat down on the couch, grabbing my PSP and numbly turning it on and reading some fanfic or other on it.

Eventually, I heard my parents' car come into the driveway, and I got up. They came in, and I showed them over to Treasure. My mother, who is a hospice nurse and has been working as an RN in some manner or other for over well over twenty years, knelt over Treasure and checked her over, sadly remarking that except for a few spots where some heat still lingered, Treasure was completely cold. After that, there was crying to some extent on all our parts as we wrapped Treasure up in a bed sheet (my mother had refused to put her in a garbage bag, and neither I or my father had the heart, or perhaps rather the lack thereof, to disagree with her on that) and sadly said our final goodbyes before I and my father lifted Treasure, wrapped up in the sheet, and carried her down to the basement freezer (which my father had cleared out to make room for Treasure while my mother and I wrapped her up in the sheet) to keep her in until we could bring her in to be cremated.

At the time of writing this, Treasure has not yet to my knowledge been cremated. I do not have the heart to go down to the freezer and check in order to verify this, so I am not entirely one hundred percent certain, but that is immaterial to my point.

Anyways, because of this, and the fact that my medicine, specifically my d-amphetamine, once again ran out well before the pharmacy was able to refill it, I have not had the will or focus to work on any of my writing. Instead, I ended up purchasing and downloading at least four different games over the course of the week for my PSP (_Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Impact_,_ Class of Heroes_, _Corpse Party Musume_, and _Dead or Alive Paradise_, though so far I'm not too impressed with that last one) and the first five episodes of some anime I've heard of called _Master of Martial Hearts_ (though I ended up not having enough room left on the 5GB memory card I'd bought a number of weeks back so that I'd be able to download _Final Fantasy VII_, since the 1GB memory card I had been using up until then simply did not have remotely enough room on it for the game which measured in at something like a whopping one thousand three hundred something megabytes, if my memory serves right).

I finally got my prescription refilled yesterday, which is how I was able to sit down and write up this notification for you all, and I've mostly come to grips with Treasure's passing (in part thanks to the continuing presence of our cat [well, technically my younger brother's cat, but he shares a flat with two friends and their baby so he doesn't really have room for her and so she lives in the house with us] Bella and the shih tzu-poodle mix puppies Princess and Precious), but I'm not sure when I'll get back to writing fics. Depending on how the cookies crumble, my well of inspiration might either dry up, or I might ultimately get sent into a fevered writing frenzy similar to what ended up happening mid-to-late last summer where I officially renewed and redoubled my work on ONNHc a few weeks after my uncle Scott passed away from cancer, resulting in a string of several 10k+ word chapters that only petered when I started working at Hong Kong (the restaurant and buffet in my town that focuses on Chinese and Szechuan cuisine, not to be confused with the city in China).

So, basically, I might get back to writing and updating my fics as soon as tomorrow, or I might not get back to my fics until as late as three months from now. Hopefully it doesn't take that long, and honestly it probably won't, but you never know for sure.

Well, it feels good to get that monkey off my back, so to speak. Hopefully I'll catch you all again with a proper update sooner rather than later.

Ta-ta for now, folks~


	22. GDHFDGFAHJN HATE TAX RETURNS SO MUCH

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A _Hayate the Combat Butler _fic

By

EvilFuzzy9

_"Whoever is not in the possession of leisure can hardly be said to possess independence. They talk of the dignity of work. Bosh. True work is the necessity of poor humanity's earthly condition. The dignity is in leisure. Besides, 99 hundredths of all the work done in the world is either foolish and unnecessary, or harmful and wicked."_

- Herman Melville

* * *

**A/N: Argh, and here I wanted to try and get back to a more lighthearted tone by starting with Yukiji, but then it ended up turning kind of really dark and bleak and depressing.**

**Also, the first part of this chapter was written up as a rough draft **_**months **_**ago, back in autumn. It's been sitting in my composition notebook ever since, and I only got to use it this chapter. Also, I didn't realize how appropriate the above quote from Herman Melville was until I reread the first scene, haha.**

**WARNING: Aside from a little bit of depressing stuff that sort of wormed its way into this chapter, there's not much to warn you guys about.  
**

* * *

**Last time on 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

* * *

_Lynn shuddered, racing through the hallways with Tama not far behind, and came to an abrupt stop. A chill ran down his ectoplasmic spine as he felt_ something _in the air. He recognized the feeling, the feeling that something _Bad _was happening. The feeling in the air was nearly identical to what had felt earlier that morning. It was something he remembered vividly._

_He brought a hand to his forehead, feeling faint. "No..." he murmured, "Not again... Hayate..."_

_Remembering what had happened the last time he had felt those unmistakeably bad vibes, Lynn shuddered and redoubled his pace._

* * *

**Now, for the next installment of 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

•

•

•

**Chapter Seventeen:**

**GDHFDGFAHJN HATE TAX RETURNS SO MUCH**

**or**

**Spotlight: Yukiji**

"Katsura-sempai! Katsura-sempai!"

Yukiji Katsura, hunched over her desk grading papers, looked up from the seventh 'F-' out of the nine papers she had graded so far (the other two having been a regular 'F' and and _exceptional_ 'F+'). She sighed inwardly as she inspected the person standing before her and excitedly calling her name. She _so _did not want to deal with this right now...

Blonde hair?

Check.

Glasses?

Check.

Out of place white lab coat?

Check, check, and check.

Yep, just as she thought. Who else but her _infuriatingly _cute and _flatteringly_ reverent kōhai, Shiori Makimura.

Yukiji glowered at the irritatingly sweet and innocent former roboticist-slash-engineer-slash-weapons-developer. She was REALLY not in the mood to deal with the other woman right now, but Makimura was seemingly oblivious to this. And anyways, the blonde could be quite tenacious when she set her mind to it, and Yukiji was too tired and possibly drunk to feel like challenging her.

So she sighed and drowsily slurred, "Wudizzit?"

Her voice sounded hoarse and her throat was scratchy, like she had not drunk any water in _hours_. Her eyes were drooping and baggy, and her hair was limp and dry and dull. Her clothes were wrinkled and smelly, like she had been sleeping in them for the past week. She had not had a break in what seemed like forever. She felt like shit, and she looked the part, too.

Makimura, on the other hand, was all sunshine and daisies and love and peace. Her hair was full and springy and glossy, her complexion was smooth and free of blemishes, and even her chest seemed bouncier and perkier than normal, much to Yukiji's chagrin. Her clothes were cleanly pressed and perfectly pristine, and much more luxurious-looking than her sempai's.

Smiling brightly enough that Yukiji had to shield her eyes, Shiori clapped her hands eagerly and chirped, "Every one of my students got a perfect score on their last exam~❤ Isn't that just WONDERFUL, Katsura-sempai~?"

Yukiji, glancing back down at the quickly growing pile of assorted 'F's and the _painfully_ _slowly_ shrinking pile of yet-ungraded exams, felt like weeping on so many different levels. She did not, however. Instead, she choked back the rising sob and flashed a painfully phony smile. "Yeah..." she muttered melancholically, "Yeah that's... that's nice. That's really... really nice, Makimura."

The words were as obviously forced as the smile, and Yukiji at that moment felt like she would enjoy nothing more than curling up in a darky, gloomy corner and dying. But Shiori Makimura was off in her own little world, so she did not pick up on this.

"Oh, but isn't it _just!-?_" Shiori squee'd happily, more or less completely oblivious to the soul-crushing malaise in her senior colleague's words. She hopped up and down in place eagerly for a moment, her breasts bouncing like she had decided to go _sans brassière _today.

She then stopped abruptly, looking somewhat embarrassed by her behavior. Looking at her sempai and giving her a sheepish smile, she said, "Ahh, but I suppose that, to such a _magnificent_ teacher as yourself, something like that is no big deal, yes? After all, you have _such a big advantage_ over me, in terms of teaching experience, that I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to hear something like ALL of your students ALWAYS complete ALL of their assignments–_on time_–and ace _each and every one of their tests and quizzes_. _**FOREVER.**_ Why, I bet that the disparity in our respective levels of skill is _so great_ and the gulf between us _so vast _that... that even if I was a teacher for the rest of my life, and you retired right now, I would still never surpass you, even if lived to be a hundred, or even a thousand!"

Yukiji, listening to the earnest admiration in her junior's voice, felt like shrinking as she once again looked from Shiori's eyes–which were so wide and starry–to the tests on her desk. She winced. With every word her blissfully ignorant kōhai spoke in her praise, it felt like she was pierced through by an arrow.

Her heart ached. It was heavy with shame over how far she was from matching up to Makimura's idealized vision of her. It was a most unpleasant sensation, and she dearly wished it to come to an end.

"—Oh, and guess what!" Shiori chirped, snapping the verdette out of her gloomy reverie.

"Uh... You're being transferred?" Yukiji guessed hopefully, feeling just a _teensy bit _bitter over how the cute blonde kept showing her up at every turn, seemingly without even trying.

"No, silly!" Makimura giggled. "Kyonosuke-kun proposed!"

Blink.

"... ... ... ... ..." Yukiji stared uncomprehendingly at the ditzy former scientist. "... ... ... eh?"

Shiori, as oblivious as ever to her coworker's feelings, blushed girlishly. She covered her face with her hands and her giggle increased in volume and tempo.

"Ooooh, it was _so romantic~__!_"she gushed, taking her sempai's hand and pulling her up out of the chair and swinging her around to the front of the desk. "I mean, I know it was out of nowhere, and I know that we've hardly been dating for more than a couple of weeks, but I couldn't help it!"

Yukiji frowned inwardly, her gut roiling unpleasantly as she processed this information, all while the younger woman giddily dragged her around the room as she danced about in barely restrained glee. Kaoru and Makimura had been _dating?_ Since when? Why hadn't she known about this?

And why did it _make her so MAD?_

"Eeeeee! He was just so charming!" Shiori continued, squealing happily as she did a pirouette. "I hadn't thought he could be so suave, but I was wrong. Everything was perfect! The candles! The moonlight dinner! The romantic music! The wine! Oh, it was all too much!" she gushed, pulling her silently protesting dance partner into a bone-crushing bear hug. "How could I possibly say no?"

Yukiji, her ribs creaking and popping as the blonde hugged her tighter and tighter, felt her fingers twitch and a vein on her temple throb.

She frowned.

_'That's odd...'_ she thought, _'Why am I feeling the strangest urge to choke a bitch...?'_

Before she could contemplate this further however, Makimura suddenly released her. Looking up at the other woman, Yukiji saw a look of 'Oh! I just remembered something!' on her face.

"OH!" Shiori exclaimed, "I just remembered something!"

Yukiji sweat-dropped.

"Here," Miss Makimura, likely soon to be Missus Kaoru, said as she held out a neatly folded piece of printing paper. "It's a note for you from the principal!"

Shaking her head at Shiori's behavior, Yukiji took the note and started reading it, not bothering to wait for Makimura to leave since _who knew_ how long that might take in her state?

_'Yukiji Katsura-sensei._

_ It has come to my attention that all the students in your homeroom class are currently failing all of their classes. In order to remedy this, I have decided that you shall spend the coming summer break working one-on-one with your problem students (i.e., all of them) and helping them with the subjects that are giving them trouble (i.e., all of them)._

_ XOXO,_

_ The Principal _❤_'_

A beat.

* * *

Yukiji awoke with a muted scream, sweating heavily.

"Shit," she swore blearily, feeling herself tremble. "What a nightmare..."

Rubbing her lightly throbbing temples to stave off a minor migraine, she sat up on the couch. She glanced around the room semi-curiously. Her recollection of the previous night was a little fuzzy, but that was nothing new for her.

Looking over at a large, heart-shaped bed on the other side of the room, she saw a large bundle of blankets wrapped up in a pseudo-cocoon on the left side of the bed, and peacefully slumbering young blonde on the right side.

_Nagi_, her still half-asleep mind informed her through the general fuzziness.

Feeling a little vindictive after that unpleasant dream, the green-haired school teacher got up and walked over to the bed. Throwing the blankets off the bed, and nearly pulling Isumi along with them, she picked the two girls up by the scruffs of their necks and dropped them unceremoniously onto the fluffy shag carpet.

Nagi yelped and Isumi squeaked. Both of them, after a moment of sleepy confusion, glared (rather adorably, Yukiji thought absently) up at the perpetrator of this indignity.

Yukiji simply stuck her tongue out at them, completely unfazed by the stink eye Nagi was giving her.

"Oy, don't be like that, ya little brat," she drawled, flicking the obstinate young blonde on the forehead, "If I have to get up to go work, then _you_ have to get up to go to school. 'S'only fair," she declared, crossing her arms across her chest.

Nagi glowered at this, sticking her tongue out at her teacher and pulling down on the bottom of one of her eyelids in a fairly rude gesture. Normally she wouldn't be quite so gauche, but she was tired and irritable.

Yukiji bopped her lightly on the head, feeling a little crabby. "Maah, be more respectful, Nagi-kun," she chided.

Her stomach chose that moment to voice its concerns over certain matters. Namely, when was she gonna put some _food _in it?

Wincing at the stomach pains as her body demanded nourishment, she grimaced as she looked down at herself. She was sweaty and smelly, and she felt like shit. She seriously needed to take a shower.

Unfortunately, she had no clean clothes here to change into... But maybe if she asked sweetly, she could convince Ayasaki to run over to her apartment and grab her a change of clothes. And if she instructed him to bring back some of her racier underwear, she might even able to model it for him...

Grinning mischievously at thoughts of teasing and flustering the young butler with her "sensual adult curves" (her words, not mine), she headed out.

* * *

Leaving Nagi and Isumi behind in the Love Nest so the two girls could find something decent to slip into, Yukiji walked out into the hallway.

Even though her hangover was mild at worst, she still initially had to squint her eyes against the radiance of the hall lights. There weren't any windows in the corridor to let in natural light, so the elegant gilded light fixtures hanging from the ceiling were the only source of illumination. Despite that, the ambient lighting out here was much brighter than back in the room, where the overhead lights had been at nearly their dimmest setting.

Idly, while getting her tongue to unstick from the dry roof of her mouth, the thought of stealing away with the expensive fixtures and pawning them off for some extra scratch crossed her mind. It was quickly dismissed, however. She was not a thief.

... Not anymore, at least. She had not walked that path in a long time, now. Not since back when she was just a young girl trying to look after her infant sister...

Yukiji shivered, and not because of any chill in the air. She bit her lip, eyes saddening as one recollection brought up another, until she was nearly drowning in memories which she had done her best to lock away.

Unlike her sister, her sweet, innocent, cute little sister, who readily shared tales of those dark days at even the slightest perceived prompting, Yukiji refused to talk or even think about the time she and her sister had spent living on the streets before being adopted by the Katsura family. That was not to say that the past was not painful for Hinagiku, but she had been only a child back then, and Yukiji had done her damnedest to shelter her from the more terrible realities of the things she had needed to do to keep them afloat, even if only barely.

Yukiji never talked about how, exactly, she had managed to keep herself and her sister from dying, cold and hungry, in some filthy alley while at the same time managing to put herself through school. She had never told anyone, not even her sister, what kind of things she had needed to do just to get enough money to even barely scrape by. It was something she hated to think about.

She abhorred thinking about the things she had done for money back then, when she was young and desperate. She loathed herself for how low she had been willing to sink back then, how easily she had been able to believe her own lies to herself that as long as it was for her sister, it would be okay.

It hadn't been.

When she'd came home bruised and bleeding, her eyes blank and her cheeks streaked with tears, it hadn't been okay. When she'd washed her hands raw, scrubbing obsessively at the skin until it was a bright pink and blood dripped into the sink, it hadn't been okay. When she'd walked through town and felt like everyone was staring at her, silently judging her, it hadn't been okay.

When she'd had to try and explain to her four year old sister why she couldn't bring her to work with her, it hadn't been okay. And when she'd looked into her sister's eyes and felt like the lowest scum of the earth for daring to associate with someone still so pure and innocent, it hadn't been okay.

She'd hated herself more than anything, back then. And even now, years later, there were still times when she could scarcely look at herself in the mirror. She was stained irrevocably with the sins of the past, even if no one but her could see it.

Some days, all she wanted to do was crawl into a dark corner and drink herself into oblivion, to curl up in the darkness where nobody could see her shame and wait to die like the dog she was. Then and now, the only thing that kept her going at all was the desire to protect her little sister.

Even if only from the truth.

Compared to her coal-black soul, Hinagiku was as pure as the driven snow. Part of Yukiji resented her for that. She hated herself for thinking such things, but it was inescapable. No matter what she did, she would never be able to escape the ghosts of her past. Hinagiku would eventual move on. Some day, her little sister would go on to have a happy life and a successful career. But Yukiji would be forever trapped in this cycle of self destruction.

She had dug her own grave, that day, so many years ago. Now she was just waiting to die.

Sighing morosely, doing her damnedest to shake off those depressing thoughts, Yukiji wandered down the hall in search of a bathroom to wash up in and a Hayate Ayasaki to fetch her a clean change of clothes.

* * *

**A/N: ... cripes, now I'll never be able to look at Yukiji the same way again. I don't where the idea for the whole dark and troubled past for her came from, but with how little we know of her and Hina's life between leaving their parents and getting adopted by the Katsura's, my mind couldn't help but fill in the blanks with its own highly depressing interpretation. I didn't make any overtly explicit references to what sort of things she might have had to do, primarily because Nothing is Scarier–that is to say, no matter what sort of things I might be able to come up with, they would invariably fall flat for some people. But if I leave the specifics blank and just provide a few nonspecific details, your minds will automatically fill in the blanks with its own interpretations.**

**Also, I had originally intended to get back to Hayate in this chapter, but Yukiji kinda ended up stealing the show... that seems to happen a lot with me, in this fic, but I suppose it's good for fleshing out the more minor characters. Even if the tangents _do_ disturbingly often end up rather darker than intended...  
**

**And lastly, as always, the stats prior to updating:**

_Hayate the Combat Butler - Rated: M - English - Humor/Drama - Chapters: 21 - Words: 132,532 - Reviews: 46 - Updated: 4-14-12 - Published: 2-27-10 - Ayumu & Hayate_

**And, additionally:**

_Hits: 12,992_

_Favorites: 33_

_Alerts: 34_

_C2s: 3  
_

**Chapter Added: **_4__-23-12 [April 23, 2012]_


	23. It's Like a Soap Opera in Here!

**Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!**

A _Hayate the Combat Butler _fic

By

EvilFuzzy9

* * *

**A/N: So. It's been a while. I've kinda been busy with other fics, and sorta lost some of my interest in this one. I'll be honest with you - I don't remember **_**half **_**of the plot for this, and that is probably for the best. This was getting too unwieldy due to how many different ideas I was trying to cram into it, with the result that it was simply getting too difficult to write.**

**SO. I've said I wouldn't abandon this, and by God, I **_**meant**_** what I said. Even if I have to abandon half of the plot threads in this tangled mess, even if I have to cut down the chapter length to just ~1k words per chapter and still only update once a month, I **_**will**_** finish this fucking thing. Because, dammit all, I've already invested too much time and energy into this fic to just let it **_**die**_**.**

**Also, if you get the chance, check out my pervy **_**Hayate the Combat Butler**_** one-shot collection, **_**HnG: Ecchi Gaiden**_**.**

* * *

**Last time on 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

* * *

_Sighing morosely, doing her damnedest to shake off those depressing thoughts, Yukiji wandered down the hall in search of a bathroom to wash up in and a Hayate Ayasaki to fetch her a clean change of clothes._

* * *

**Now, for the next installment of 'Om Nom Nom, Hamster-chan!':**

•

•

•

**Chapter Eighteen:**

**It's Like a Soap Opera in Here!**

Hayate blinked, straining his eyes to make out something other than the blinding glare of white, white, and more white.

Where was he? He couldn't remember... Was it his bathroom, still?

No, it couldn't be... Or could it?

He groaned. It hurt to think.

He heard someone gasp. The sound was distorted and sort of muffled, like there was cotton in his ears.

_"Oh my __— !__ Is he really __— ?"_ he heard one voice say.

_ "It looks — it." _he heard another reply.

_ " __—__ thank __— __!" _the first voice exclaimed, before Hayate suddenly felt a pair of arms wrap around his torso. He felt something soft pressing against his chest, and a pleasantly warm weight settled on his chest.

_"Don't __— __him __— __" _Hayate heard a another voice say. It was quiet, but it sounded male, which contrasted it with the other two.

Groaning weakly, the butler sat up, rubbing his head. He felt the arms let go of him, and the weight leave his lap. He heard the first two voices cry out sharply.

_ "Ha__—n!"_

_"Haya—un!"_

"Hayate-kun!"

Hayate blinked, wincing as he felt a sudden, sharp pain in his ears. It felt like having them popped, but now he could hear properly, at least.

Blinking and rubbing his eyes, trying to get them to see something other than that _damnable white_, Hayate looked around blindly.

"You alright, kid?" he heard the vaguely familiar male voice ask, a hint of humor in his tone.

"_I can't see...!_"Hayate rasped, his voice slightly panicked.

"Hayate-kun..." he heard the second voice say, recognizing it now as Hinagiku. "That would be because of the bandages..."

Hayate blinked.

Oh. That made sense, then. At least, it would explain why it had felt so odd when he had rubbed his eyes...

Sheepishly, Hayate scratched his chin.

"_Oh,_" he said, and he then flinched at the sound of his own voice. It was hoarse and scratchy, sounding like it had not been used in ages. "_Where am I?_" he asked, his throat sore as he spoke.

"The hospital," said the first voice, and Hayate could tell now that it was Nishizawa-san. "Ohhh, we were so _worried,_ Hayate-kun!"

"You looked awful, when you Sis found you," Hinagiku added hoarsely. "I thought... I almost worried you were already _dead_."

"Technically, he _was_," the male voice interjected conversationally. "The doctors barely even managed to bring him back _at all_, you know. Took 'em a whole seven tries to restart his heart. Said that if he didn't suffer severe brain damage, it'd be miracle."

Hayate could _hear_ the man's smile.

"Congrats, kid," he said. "Your continued survival defies the explanation of all known medical science. You're a regular abomination."

Hayate scowled at the man's cheerful tone. He heard a smacking sound, and a growl.

"Don't talk like that!" Hinagiku snarled. "The doctors said they didn't want us worrying him!"

"Hey, _you're _the one who started it!"

"Do you _want_ to be hit again?" Hinagiku said dangerously. "Just... just _go._ Get out, before I decide to _really_ hurt you."

"Fine, fine," the man grumbled, before muttering, "_I suppose I should go and get 'her majesty', anyways..._"

Hayate frowned as he heard the man leave.

"Who _was _that?" he asked, his voice rasping less than before.

"..." the girls were silent for a moment.

"He's...uhhhh... ... ..._huh_. You know what...? I don't think I ever actually got his name..." said Ayumu, sounding slightly sheepish.

"..." Hinagiku didn't say anything, for a moment, before muttering, "Well... I don't think it's his actual name... but I think he put down his name as '_Nezumimaru Mizune_' in the visitor register."

Hayate frowned slightly. Something about that name was niggling at him, but he shoved it aside for later.

"Can one of you help me with these bandages...?" he asked, reached up to try and undo them.

Before he could try to remove them, however, his hand was stopped by a smaller, softer one, and a familiar, girlish voice.

"Hayate..." he heard her say, her voice choked. It sounded like she was just barely holding back a deluge of tears.

Her hand let go of his, only for her to wrap her arms around his chest and bury her head in his shoulder. He felt the dampness on his bare skin, and heard the sobs.

"Hayate, you dummy!" cried his mistress Nagi as she wept unabashedly into his shoulder. "Don't you _ever_ do anything like that again!"

She began hiccuping as she continued, wailing, "I thought — I thought — I thought you said you were gonna take care of me, no matter what!"

"Milady..." Hayate murmured hoarsely, as he found himself saying, "Why are you crying over someone like me? It's not like... I'm not..."

"You could have _died,_ stupid, and you... you're my... of course I'd cry over something like that...!" Nagi sniffled nearly incoherently, lifting her head from his shoulder and wiping her runny nose on her sleeve.

Then, eyes hardening, she pointed at him and declared, "You still have to pay back all that money you owe me, you idiot... So don't think I'll let you go off and die just like that! Not until you've paid me back!"

Nishizawa and Hinagiku scowled darkly at Nagi for her callous way of putting things, while Maria and Nezumimaru silently watched the proceedings from the doorway.

But Hayate smiled, tears glistening in his eyes before he wiped them away with his hand.

"Milady..." he whispered weakly, "..._thank you_."

* * *

**Stats prior to updating:**

_Hayate the Combat Butler - Rated: M - English - Humor/Adventure - Chapters: 22 - Words: 125,965 - Reviews: 47 - Favs: 36 - Follows: 40 - Updated: 4-23-12 - Published: 2-27-10 - Ayumu & Hayate_

**And additionally:**

**Hits:**_ 15,643  
_

**C2s:**_ 3  
_

**Chapter Added: **_ 8-17-12 [August 17, 2012]_

**TTFN and R&R!**


End file.
